trade the future, not the past

ever come across a chart like the one of USDJPY from today? [live stream from this day | Trade Log Here]

and your trades in this were only part of it or none at all?
(below the image shows the trades I have made myself on this move)

were you thinking like:

• WOW 132 Pips (1320 points)
• that would have been so much money i could have made
• such an easy trade, but why didn’t I take it?
• if i just held on longer that would be such a large gain

well bottom line is “YOU DIDN’T!!” and that is not a bad thing!

well okay, if you are a trend-trader some of this statements “may be” true.
but if you trade intraday, and you have a set of rules, then outcomes like this are very normal.

moaning about not gained pips in the past is just as contra productive and self-destructing!

and has about the same value as moaning about all the babies you could have made since you passed puberty.

from my trade plans perspective, this was a VERY profitable day, as I made far more, as usual, stick to my plan and had only 1 losing trade.

let’s just take this day as an example. my personal trade plan is very simple:

Enter at the vWap reversal, hold till next Support or Resistance.
simple stuff, the beauty of this simple rule is, that i can execute it multiple times during the day.

split it up:

first trade: “trade the consolidation back to the channel top, place first 30% size scale in on the bottom to full size”
result, trade went exactly as planned, drawdown less than 0.2% at all times.

nest one: “same as the first one”
result: did not work as price broke below after the drawdown hit 0.7% position was hedged…
1 winner one loser so far. overall still a green day (i could just hit the “close all” button and still be in profit)

and the last one: after confirming the direction down, no closeby & significant Support, resolved the hedged position by closing the Buy position with a large loss, while the sell position did cover the loss already (with a 0.7% difference), the mission now “exit the trade at the next Support level”

and as you can see, this is exactly what happens.

recap: 1 Straight winner, 1 loser, and another massive but planned winner that paid the hedge and made a huge gain.
closing shop with a 2.7% gain. this is truly a successful day. (it lasted only 3 hours as well)

the fact that the 3 trades I made only covered 14% of the complete move is completely irrelevant!
the day was still a perfect day, as the losses generated where paid for with the follow-up trade almost instantly.

below the exit, the price fell another 100ish pip, but there was no setup to enter.

be grateful if things work out as they should be and do NOT try to catch movements that are not part of your plan.