Get it, got it, good.

I've found that I've had quite a few losing trades because I was anticipating a larger move than was being shown at the time. I.e. I'm 1 pip in profit but holding on for 3+ more. Then it would reverse, stop me out, then continue where I thought it would go. Frustrating. However, I figured that if I use Oanda for trading and NT just for charts (I love their charting), I could just grab those very small, quick pips and get out. And since Oanda spread is lower than MBT spread+commission a 1 pip profit in MBT/NT would be 1.5 - 2pip profit in Oanda. Getting those quick pips is something I'm familiar with because I started out with a similar method scalping the Asian session a while back. So I brought that over to the NY session and the last couple days have gone well (today's graph posted). Some losing trades but more small winners + a couple nice sized winners. So far, so good. Just gotta get in and get out quickly. Get the pip and get the fuck out. If it continues strong then stay in, if it stalls or reverses at all get OUT!

Oh yeah, Oanda doesn't have a close position button like NT. You have to put in a reversing trade to close. Initially I had a 2 pip S/L but I once tried to close earlier but due to slippage/lag it didn't show the stop had been hit. So I reversed the position to close, only to see that my stop was already hit so I had entered a trade in the opposite direction. Yikes. I closed immediately but still lost a couple pips because of it. To prevent that in the future I moved the hard stop to 10 pips (as an emergency stop) but manually close at 2.


Also, other lessons learned...

1) Go WITH the trend. Use CCI to confirm where trend is at.
2) Don't trade initial break out. Fills are horrible. By the time I get filled the market is often slowing and retraces a small amount which hits my stop. Trade the second break on the retrace. Much better fill.
3) Don't trade into support/resistance or traffic. Trade past the the lines. Trade past the traffic.
4) Watch markets at ADX 20+. Trades at 25+. Anything less is uncivilized.
5) When rough, get the pips and call it a day. When markets are trending smooth, stay with it and ride the good fortune.