That pesky trigger
Just a little frustrating at the moment for myself. I have been using this strategy/template for over 12 months now and can see each and every trade which I SHOULD be taking. I dont know what it is but I cannot pull the trigger on any of them. Even if I do I end up pulling out with only a few pips only for the perfect trade to go 60-70 pips leaving me highly frustrated. This seems to be happening at least 3 or 4 times a day at the moment. I have tried demo trading and reducing stake to minimum but I still cannot get out of my trading rut! I dont know what the answer is but when I eventually cross this massive hurdle the system will be a ringing cash machine.
Hope there are other people who have maybe suffered from this problem to share there thoughts.
The combination of 123`s and silver crosses on 15m/60m/4hr charts all add up to a great system which is highly profitable and very lucrative indeed.
Hi Rosso
I have every sympathy for you and went through exactly the same emotions as you are now for many many months. It all started to click into place a bit better when I did three things.
First was to concentrate just on three pairs, I only watch gbpusd, eurusd and eurjpy. I found I not only got distracted by more pairs but by concentrating on just the three I became more confident about what to expect from each one.
I consider Cable to be my principle pair and is the one we seem to trade most on the breakouts through the pivots. Also if you study the charts you will see that pretty much everytime you are with the trend between 6.00am and 7.00am UK time you can expect a move and it will generally move at least 25 pips, often squeak 50 and days it will just go. So you can be prepared at the optimum times and more confident that the trade will work.
Second I found, after many many months of study, that I could easily see the silver cross set-ups so wrote myself a tick list for entries just on these trades. They are great trades and if I can tick every box I know from my back testing that there is more than an 80% chance that the trade will win. And by ticking the boxes I became more confident that what I could see was a trade and so had no reason not to pull the trigger.
And third, I wrote a detailed money management plan. Before I enter a trade I know where I will set my stop, I know to put a limit order on for 25 pips and 50 pips and when I will move my stop up to +1 (never breakeven, lol, gotta make at least 1 pip). I then use various other methods to close the final lot, ie Fibonacci expansion if it's a strong 123, 8 ema crossing 5 ema for others. I practiced these methods on demo and then on 10p pip.
When it comes down to it, really you just have to have your own personal mantras to make yourself pull the trigger. Dan and the guys can give us the ammo but at the end of the day only you can do that bit. I wrote on a post it "statistically 100% of trades you never take never win" and stuck it to my pc. You just have to say to yourself that I will only possibly lose X pips and I am prepared to do that, but I could make X pips or more, which would I rather try and do. And it feels so great when you do it right, you just want to try and do it again. And when you do get it right send Dan an email because he sends you a great one back telling you you're fab, which makes it even better!
As Julie says you don't have to take every trade called in the room, just start with the set-ups you can see and try and build some confidence from there, stick to low stakes, and above all remember we all learn at a different pace. Perhaps keep a journal saying why you didn't want to take the trade and which aspect put you off, and see how many times you would have been right. Print off the trades you like, learn from the trades that don't work and above all stick to your money management plan.
Good luck and we're all right there with you.
RS