Seeking consistency

The daily time frame trend is long, Fridays candle indicated rejection of lower prices at this time, coinciding with the 50 - 61.8% re-tracement zone of the previous daily up move and daily resistance for the start of July (potential resistance becomes support)

However the 4H chart is trending lower, so I am watching for a blatant rejection of lower prices to act as a trigger for me to enter contrary to the shorter term trend (so it may not happen for a few days), unless Fridays low is breached, in which case the daily candle trigger is invalidated

Both charts have the same direction on the daily and 4H indicators and have retraced into 50 / 61.8% of their last 4 hourly 'with the trend' swing and printed reasonable 4hourly trigger candle formations

I am aware of GBP news in the next hour, which may stop my trades out, but that is accepted in my risk

I have placed orders
sell GBP CHF at 1.55 75, with a stop at 1.56 05 (-30pips risk) and initial profit target at 1.54 60 ( reward +115pips) R just short of 4
buy GBP CAD at 1.52 75, stop 1.52 15 (-70 pips risk) initial target at 1.54 75 (reward +200 pips) R just short of 3

AUD CHF trade opened and stop moved to break even
(price has seen 1.04 60 = +230pips, just 40pips from an R10 target)
trade stopped out for NIL
EUR AUD trade opened and stop moved to break even
(price has seen 1.16 10 = +130pips, just 10pips from an R4 target)
trade stopped out for NIL

Very annoying (that's trading) both of these trades have been taken out for NIL, having narrowly failed to make their profit targets

I don't believe (apart from with the benefit of hindsight, with a tighter trailing stop) that I could have traded these two any better and so will not be making any change to my trading plan

My 'sell' and 'buy' statements are obviously incorrect in this original post put the levels are all correct :-
GBP CHF trade opened
GBP CAD trade opened, price has since touched 1.52 45 (+30pips) which being the equivalent of my original risk, so I have moved my stop to breakeven

GBPCAD stop hit for NIL

Just on the back of this, do you not ever coonsider scaling out of your positions aswel as moving your stop to breakeven? So at least paying yourself some green pips but still having your open poistion?

I only ask this as I have myself had times where i have moved stops to breakeven and been stopped out for nil points and have thought to myself "I wish id have scaled out and at least made some money!"

maybe something to think about and incorporate into your trading plan at times.

Great thread anyway.

Sam

Hello Sam

Thank you very much for your post

I have considered taking some profit in addition to moving my stop, but have decided against it as (given the trade has already moved in the expected / desired direction) I would be reducing the potential gain if price continues to move favorably to my target. Thus for a loser I would lose my full risk, for a winner I would gain two partial wins (which netted out would be a smaller over all win than planned) and would reduce my 'R' (risk to reward ratio).

I consider 'R' to be the most important aspect of my trading strategy, since I expect to have at least as many, if not more losing trades than winning ones. Therefore, in order to be profitable in the long term I must achieve an actual 'R' of considerably better than 2.

Ideally I should leave a trade to the market in totality, taking either the full loss or profit. However I find taking the losses too painful and would rather take a lot of breakeven positions (even that would have gone on to be winners) than have more losers and winners. Moving my stop to break even if it has moved an equal distance from the trade opening level as my original stop was is how I do this, it is very arbitrary but I am comfortable with it.

With the benefit of hindsight on this particular trade it was a very poor decision / interference with the trade, since it rallied back up to exactly the opening (and now exit too) level and then moved back away to the 'R+1' level

Unfortunately I do find trading in hindsight much easier than when all I have to the right of my set up is white space!

the daily trend indicators are short the 4hourly are flat (directionless)
price has retraced 50 / 61.58% of the last 4 hourly down swing and printed a daily candle formation indicating rejection of higher prices at this point in time

The level is below the obvious resistance on the daily chart, which held last week, at the 50 / 61.8% re-tracement of the previous large daily down swing

I have placed an order at the 50% re-tracement of yesterdays daily bar, which aligns very closely to the four hour trigger bar

I have split the profit targets in two, initially looking for the recent low of 1.22 40 (+110 pips, R almost 3) and there after this years low at 1. 20 50 (+300 pips, R over 7). However with two halves the true maximum reward is 55+150 = 205, which is still a very acceptable R=5

Order is at 1.23 50, with a stop at 1.23 90 (risk of -40pips)