Day 21. - 13.2. Houston, we have a problem.

A morning of technical difficulties and blunders. First, I put in a pending trade, price hit it, went into profit by 4 pips, stalled, and I went to exit. But wait, where's my trade? What shenanigans are being pulled here? Did Oanda's platform have a hiccup? Oh. Arrgh. Insufficient funds for the trade. I had switched my account back to the primary instead of the sub since I went up to 10k units. But I was logged in to the sub when I put the trade. Fuck. Oh well.

My first real trade was a small winner. The 2nd and 3rd trades lagged hard. On each of them price stalled and where I'd normally get out (would have been profit on both) my trade wasn't even showing in the open positions. They didn't show until after price had bounced back and put in me in a loss. What the fuck. That 3rd trade didn't become visible until I was negative but I made it worse by leaving it open to give it some room to move. I had a feeling it wasn't behaving right but I tried to gut it out anyway and took a full stop hit. The 4rth and final trade is later, not seen on chart. But that one was all my fault and it too hit my full stop. Bad morning.

I was trying to hold to hit my targets with the 3rd and 4rth trades but it dawned on me this morning (afterwards) that I would probably be better off giving it time when it's already in profit. Once again, it all comes back to momentum. If price is moving against me momentum is lacking, or worse it's building in the opposite direction. Which means I should get out quick. If price is going with me and I'm in profit then momentum is on my side, plus I have a little room to breathe. Just make sure I don't let a winner become a loser.

But then the question becomes, what's the use of having a 6pip max stop if I'm going to bail at 1-3pips anyway? When do I let the trade actually move against me for a full stop? Should I even do that? If not, why am I using dynamic stops to begin with? Hmmm...

Probably the best time to allow, and maybe the only time, a full stop is when that stop is backed up by some other factors. Such as s/r lines PLUS the EMA, and going with the trend, and has at least a 1:1 ratio AND is not trading into congestion or other s/r. That's a really specific instance to allow a full stop but then it would be more likely for price to bounce off and continue in my direction.

On top of everything, I couldn't sleep last night and got only a few hours of shut eye. When I woke I didn't feel unusually tired but I have to wonder if I would have made the same mistakes in holding on to those trades if I had more rest.

Over yonder, I continue to ponder...