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NFP day. I wasn't prepared for the move like that. Volatility was awesome but I put my buy stop too far away. I made a mistake with one short trade. Another short trade stopped me out by a chance - stopped and run my way, happens. And then I went down from 7 cars to 3 and allowed myself 2 more losers today but will let trade run to TP or managed based on candle close. First trade took 30 ticks and I decided to finish my day with it. Up 600 on the day, not 3 grand I counted on from NFP day (and well could have made it) but we all learn. I will start working next week on letting trades work and not killing it in the beginning.
I will be trying a modified approach today, something I have been considering in past two weeks. My very proactive trade management saves some trades from hitting SL and gaining few ticks in some cases, but it kills some profitable runners too, while it almost never save losers that don't go more than 1-2 ticks into profit at all - I have trouble pulling a trigger on them. Well, this is why I adopted so small stop loss - instead of limiting loss by killing trades I don't like, I should let them hit SL and be done. But I need to let ones that did not hit SL work better. Hence I will try this approach this week:
1. I will select entry levels beforehand, like I do normally
2. I will not wait for price action to get close and analyze it (I missed quite a few trades that went through my levels and raced to would be profits) but will put pending orders instead
3. I will split my orders 50/50, both halves with 6 tick stop loss, but one half with 10 ticks profit target, another one with 50. It will allow this semi-attended model to secure 10 ticks profit that will happen frequently (50% or more) and let the runners on the second half run, with manual management on 2 minute candle close like from original plan.
4. The only difference I won't be screwing up with them like I do for last 3 weeks (and my original plan did not intend it!), but let them work or fail. My strength is my entry selection and I have to lean on it and let it work and build up a strength in trade management when letting it breathe more freely.
I won't be going 8 cars today, but will stick with 6 car trades, having 3 car with 10 tick TP and another 3 car with 50 tick TP. We shall see how it works. I will allow 3 days to trade this way, since I will only be able to trade 3 days this week, being absent on Wed and Thu.
My expectations are this approach will deliver better results in 3 day week rather my regular approach in 5 day week. In any case I will still have another month to fiddle with it if this week proves to be unsuccessful. I still need to deliver around 7200 usd in profits and still have 5 weeks for it. Hopefully new approach will get me there in 2 weeks, this is my plan. Also it should improve my holding time for winners and bring me back to all-green state.
As a way to say thank you for all my supporters here that follow my attempt with Combine, I decided to put few videos showing how I trade. I start with this small video, it does not have live trades per se, but I outlined a potential entry and commented along the progress of this would-be trade.
Check out Peter Davis' webinar on order flow, at 7:20 you can see a slide with essentials of my trading method. There is no connection here and this is wicked!
Today is a record low volume during this Combine. Overnight gold was moving up, then range and then when Super Mario's comment start hitting the wire it went down. But lack of participation on any move not based on comments. Tried two trades on very strong signals. First went 7 ticks and reversed, closed at +2, second only went 5-6 ticks, closed at +4. Only 300 usd on the day net, but did few videos during these trades, hope you folks appreciate them.
I have started to record my trades to review my line of thinking and discipline while in trades later on, but edited this video for those of you who might be interested.