xelaar 

I think in the type of trading you are doing a confirmation will make you enter later but will not help with a losing trade. Try to find a filter factor from an aspect you are not currently basing your setups for. Such as precise time of day range, or around top of the hour when most activity happens, or key levels. But in any case don't beat yourself too hard - we had a ridiculous market yesterday, nothing was working for me as well. And further we go into summer, harsher you need to be with a decision when not to trade at all. Check the currently traded volume and if it is much less than average - pass on it. With your breakout/momentum entries you need volume and participation to produce healthy runs, low volume will give you fakeouts and spikes all over the place.

I'm thinking about going over my last few week's trading and build a profile for my best trades. I've been so immersed in price action while trading, that I concentrated only on how I felt the market would do instead of on specific patterns. I want to see what my best/worst trades look like, and try to discern any pattern that could improve my trading.

yesterday's experiment with letting my trades run longer had ended up disastrous. but at least I found out that I couldn't handle the emotional strain of large wins going back to zero and large losses. so today I'll be reversing back to concentrating on getting my 1st scale. I always feel much more relaxed and could let the rest run longer after the 1st scale.

Make sure to note you are trading a generally very thin market during the most illiquid times. You should expect great slippages when moving live. Also, TST won't let you trade outside of US trading hours initially, so assume you would have to trade from 7 AM to 3 PM CST.

no stats today, because I did something really bad last night that messed it up.

last night when trading didn't go well I thought "what am I doing here? who am I kidding? I ain't cut to be trader." and I really felt that I should give it up.

today I went over the chart, marking my trades, I could clearly see that, had I done what I needed to do at the required time, I could have ended the day at least break even.

of course I wouldn't give up anyway. if I hadn't been keeping this journal, I'd probably sulk for a few days and then start searching for a new holy grail.

but the journal has shown me that I don't need to look for a new trading method. what I must change is me. I already know what to do, now I must make myself do it.

so today I'm going to start monitoring myself, changing my focus from trading profits to doing the right thing. I'll stop checking my profit/loss tick by tick, and start asking myself with the completion of every bar - "what's the right thing to do now?"

Sayounara 

so today I'm going to start monitoring myself, changing my focus from trading profits to doing the right thing. I'll stop checking my profit/loss tick by tick, and start asking myself with the completion of every bar - "what's the right thing to do now?"

Maybe logging your feelings or just verbalising them at each stage could be useful too - we can't (and shouldn't) try to control our feelings but, as you rightly identify, we have to work extra hard to control our behaviour and actions.

last night I hit my daily loss limit early on and had to stop trading for the combine.

it was caused by my inability to cut losses short. I wanted to be right all the time that I couldn't accept a loss until it really hurted. I've now marked this as my biggest obstacle to trading success.

took a few days off to recharge my battery and to re-think my strategy.

last friday's attempt to cut my losses short had resulted in my cutting most of my winners prematurely. I've been pouring over my charts ever since to investigate ways to limit my losses. so far I could only conceive that using lower timeframes is possibly one way to do it. so today I've dropped my trading chart to 89 volumes and experimented with asian session.

I've enrolled in TSTU CTD and went through the lectures of Closes, Candlesticks and Candlesticks Math, your comments on your charts suggest to me, you're living candle by candle.

Just might be something to look into.

The Course has lots to offer as I thought I knew what I was doing and turns out to be the complete opposite.

My last 30 days of recorded trades produced a consistent win average but not enough to pass a combine for funding.

CTD has also taught me how to look at and interpret multiple time frames, also important.

Basically, everything from the Freshman level are the basics to trading but is the foundation for more advanced stuff.

I wasted years of my time trying to figure things out on my own, its "cheaper" to just pony up and get the correct education.

BeansTwoNiner 

I've enrolled in TSTU CTD and went through the lectures of Closes, Candlesticks and Candlesticks Math, your comments on your charts suggest to me, you're living candle by candle. Just might be something to look into. The Course has lots to offer as I thought I knew what I was doing and turns out to be the complete opposite. My last 30 days of recorded trades produced a consistent win average but not enough to pass a combine for funding. CTD has also taught me how to look at and interpret multiple time frames, also important. Basically, everything from the Freshman level are the basics to trading but is the foundation for more advanced stuff. I wasted years of my time trying to figure things out on my own, its "cheaper" to just pony up and get the correct education.

thank you for the suggestion. I'd love to enter the course but I just don't have the money for it.

so far I feel that the most important thing in trading is to control losses. what does CTD teach about loss control? any specific technique you could share?