Forex Trading Review – Week 41

Hey traders! I hope your week went well.

This week I only had ONE valid setup occur. It was a pullback trade on EUR/JPY, and it broke even, which makes this officially the most boring trading week I’ve ever had.

I didn’t think that it was possible to have so few trading opportunities in a week given that I trade the 1 Hour and 15-Minute charts across 6 different pairs, but I guess there’s a first time for everything!

In the past I would have found it extremely difficult to wait patiently during this period of inactivity. In fact I don’t think there’s ever been a time in the past three years where I only took a single trade in a whole week.

But this week it was easier to sit on my hands than it’s ever been. I didn’t even think about it. I just kept checking my charts regularly waiting for a setup to occur, and they never did, so I never took any action.

This is because I now know deep down in my bones that every time I place a trade that is not based on a statistical advantage, I dramatically increase my chances of losing money.

Sometimes being a disciplined and consistent trader means not doing any trading at all. That was this week’s lesson!

7th October – 11th October

Trade #211

Reflection:

This was a classic high-probability pullback setup. I didn’t like the fact that price had tagged a Daily structure level, but because this is the 15-Minute chart I often still take these setups.

This is because during my backtesting I noticed that price will often retest these structure levels on the lower timeframes before being rejected from them (ie. making a double-top or double-bottom).

Because I use a 1-in-1-out approach with my 15M trading I was comfortable trying to capture some profit out of the retest.

Unfortunately right after my break-even protective stop loss target was hit and I rolled my stop to break-even, price swung down to tag my stop loss order before immediately breaking much higher and blasting straight through the red resistance zone.

It’s always frustrating when this happens but it’s a part of doing business the way that I do. Without the break-even stop loss rule my drawdown would be much worse than it currently is, so even though this cost me a nice winning trade here, it also serves a long-term purpose and so I did the right thing. Good Trade.

Weekly Reflection

Annual Return: +2.23% | Drawdown: -20.50%

Last Week’s Goal: Backtest At Least 1 Pair Per Day.

Overall Grade: C

I didn’t get as much time to backtest this week as I’d hoped to.

I’ve been feeling pretty drained by this losing streak and so I decided to take my mind off of trading for a few days. I spent a few days on my own doing things other than trading (for the first time since I began my forex education – it felt weird!), and then I took the weekend off to spend time with my dad and watch the Bathurst race.

I think it’s important to take a break from trading when you’re not in the right frame of mind to be making optimal decisions, but it’s also important to stay vigilant and work hard at improving – so I’m ready to make up for it this week!

Have a great trading week, speak soon.

– Matt

Next Week’s Goal

Backtest At Least 1 Pair Per Day.

Previous Week’s Review
This Week’s Review
Myfxbook Stats

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