What ALL My Worst Trades Have in Common

After writing the article about what my Best trades have in common i decided it will be equally if not more helpful to determine exactly what my WORST Losing trades have in common. In Doing so i came up with a list of mistakes that make most often. These mistakes are the akillies heal for any trader and must be clearly outlined diognosed and corrected immediatley upon discovery.

Before i List my own this is a list of differences between successful trader and Unsuccessful traders. They mirror each other

What I have observed in my own trading:
Over Trading. whenever i have a bad day i usually Balk more than once (I enter and re-enter in the opposite direction more than once over the span of a short time) This is completely horrible, fortunately it doesn't happen too often. But when it does it leads to multiple trade that just cost in confidence.

Trading against the TREND. Whenever I turn in a losing day it is usually hit hard by one or more trade against the Trend or trying to catch a reversal with a 2 point STOP!!! Doesn't even make sense when viewed from the perspective of a specialist, How can a trader be soo exact as to consistently catch the peak of a reversal without noting an Accumulation or Distribution Phase. Always Note your directional clues, Exhaustion, Divergence, Trend lines and Cycles.

Losing Focus - This can happened for any reason, a headache, having to use the restroom, a losing trade, a simple error or mistake, crash charts etc, either way you slice it, when you lose focus you should be mindful to stop trading until you can regain it. This will lead to loses and further loses as you spiral out of control.

Impulsive Entries, Breaking or Ignoring my Rules, recently happens early in the day as I tend to force the action, this leaves me playing catch up for the day and battling the markets instead of flowing with it. Also this impulsiveness can be triggered by emotional distractions. I'm correcting this by limiting my early trades to a specific entry to focus on in the 1st hour. see Open Ice Breaker.

Late Entries - All my Worst days will have a late entry on one or more trades.
Hesitation is a traders way of saying I'm not sure about this trade, when in fact every trade is only a probability distribution amongst the overall market consensus. Hesitation leads to late entries and missed opportunities, they cost you in points and confidence even though you may have a strong edge a late entry will need a larger stop throwing off your risk reward for that trade adding unnecessary pressure.

Moving MY Stops - Allowing Gains to become Loses, This must corrected by all who plan to undergo the rigors of trading. If you cant hold onto  the gains that you do receive than there is no way to make a living at this art form. Fortunately this is a thing of the past for me, but every now and then my Ignorant  side will try to creep in with a "this is a runner you should Move your stop to give it room"

Not Stopping to Analyse Loses - If you get stopped out, Dont reenter in the same direction without first understanding exactly why the trade failed!! Take the time to ANALYSE the mistake before reentering.

Time of Day - Dont trade during times of low focus, such as Dead Zone and After LAY LAY AND Feezah get active. This is a good time to think about wrapping up the day as focus tends to wane and distractions increase.

Examples of Poor trades taken in battle:

Mostly All my losers (3 consecutive) came after 7 bar zone, and where ALL against 1500 tick Exhaustion & Trend and within an hour!!

The 1st of these trades was a classic Resistance consolidation that never follows thru. I shorted @ 1319 The Hint to PASS on this trade was there was NO PROBAR AT THE RESISTANCE TOP

(look at the Red arrows on the 1500 & 500 tick, also see the 500 cycle to the long side)

The 2nd & 3rd Poor Entry's came 10 minutes apart in the same direction short @ 1320 & 1322.75 Both Stop Out.  (The Key here was both trades were taken short into SUPPORT and AGAINST the TREND and Exhaustion) 

The 2nd trade had NO cycle sync at ALL!!

The 3rd had one 1500 cycle but NO sync to confirm. (look at red arrows)

The 4500 turns at resistance BUT HAS NO PROBARS to confirm.

In summery, 

1. We should Never Enter without Probar Volume confirmation.

2. Dont Trade against the Trend. (here we were clearly in an accumulation stage and trending UP)

3. Dont Trade against 1500 Exhaustion especially after a large sell off that had probars to stop the run.

4. If you get stopped out, Dont reenter in the same direction without first understanding exactly why the trade failed!!