Another thing I did wrong......

This thread is where I'm going to post my mistakes.

Apologies to lurkers hoping to pick up a holy grail, probably the last thing you want to read about is someone else's mess-ups. All I can say is I've already posted how I'm trading, and I am making money, but in this game you can always learn and improve - your own mistakes can be a mine of knowledge if you have the honesty and discipline to dig into them.

Guidelines -
1. I'm going to post trades that went against my own trade rules but also conventional trading wisdom
AND
2. where insights can be gained into either better TA or stronger psychological control of the trade

3. feel free to contribute your own experiences, this is our forum, not my blog.

good idea

Nice thread, Tomo, here's my latest

The Plan: Build as big a position in oil as pyramiding would allow and look for a decent opportunity to commence.

The Opportunity: Brent oil came to a potential double bottom at about $45 last week and here (I thought) was the opportunity.

The Execution Mistakes:

1. Too, big a position on entry had me scared out by an initial adverse move (you are trading to the cent on oil :idea- read dbp on "fear" again

2. Re-entry the day before we went off for a couple of days golf to a hotel where their wi-fi had broken down. Panic.

3. Got to a pub with w-fi and was relieved to find 82 points up. Closed promptly at $44.59. And it's $53.48 as I type - that's 889 points more

4. Had a good plan (I think), the thing is up 1000 points and I'm sitting on the sidelines.

barjon said:

Nice thread, Tomo, here's my latest

The Plan: Build as big a position in oil as pyramiding would allow and look for a decent opportunity to commence.

The Opportunity: Brent oil came to a potential double bottom at about $45 last week and here (I thought) was the opportunity.

The Execution Mistakes:

1. Too, big a position on entry had me scared out by an initial adverse move (you are trading to the cent on oil :idea- read dbp on "fear" again

2. Re-entry the day before we went off for a couple of days golf to a hotel where their wi-fi had broken down. Panic.

3. Got to a pub with w-fi and was relieved to find 82 points up. Closed promptly at $44.59. And it's $53.48 as I type - that's 889 points more

4. Had a good plan (I think), the thing is up 1000 points and I'm sitting on the sidelines.

Click to expand...

Commiserations jon.

Experience last week with GBP/NZD had some similarities - position too big, made me too sensitive to adverse move and so shook me out.

As soon as I went in long I chickened out of setting my stop where it should have been on TA terms as that would have been too big a loss in £ for me to stomach. So I set a loss-based stop which of course makes no sense, and then got shaken out when we fell back. Having made the initial mistake, should have realised the position was too heavy and either cut it down or dumped it straight away. Disappointing but since then I have had a more careful look at the potential losses on my open positions and the leverage on the currency pairs I might trade in the future.
1. failed to size position correctly as % of account
2. failed to set TA-based stop

barjon said:

Oh, dearie me - can't stand such off topic dissing. Where are the mods, quick, I'm being bullied and intimidated.

Click to expand...

Steady Jon.
bullied? - maybe
intimidated? - I can hardly think so.