What can I say…sometimes in trading it is not the markets which get you it is your own self. Making poor decisions can be very costly. If you make a judgement on where you think price will go based on chart pattern etc and then it doesn’t go right and you get stopped out, as long as your decision making was correct and your entry was properly done then it is not your fault, the market just didn’t play ball.
But when you have a black and white rule where there is no grey area for debate and there is only one answer to the question and you ignore what you know you have to do and do the opposite then the only person to blame is yourself. I have turned what could have been a good month into one that has kicked me in the bo**ocks. My rule for trading is don’t trade if there is high importance news out for that currency. If a trade is open then I may move the stop to break even. If there is a global news event which effects all currencies then I close the trade, no ifs no buts. However, I had been farming 4 trades on the eur/chf, usd/chf, nzd/jpy and nzd/chf. Some were doing well and I had added on (particularly the usd/chf) others were waiting to get started but were ok. On the morning of Friday 23rd August I saw there was news out that was going to impact across the board. I think in my inexperienced enthusiasm that I was actually having some success I didn’t want to close the trades and so left them open. Worst still I went away for 4 days so didn’t return until Monday evening and didn’t check any charts in the meantime. BIG MISTAKE! I came back to all having been taken out (one for break even) due to comments made during the G7 summit.
I am gutted because it was non-negotiable, I should have just closed the trades and had I done that I would have been up 4.8% and finished the month 3.8% overall. A great result that would have meant I went into September on the front foot and was planning (if September went well) to up my account in October. However, I have now finished the month 4.5% down and have had to delay any decision to up the account by at least two months.
Lets hope the blog for next month is more upbeat 🙂
Alex Trader Blog 