This is a trading journal where I talk about what I've learned from making bad trades. Sometimes bad trades are not losses if one was lucky to get out in a small profit, but the fact is... there is no trader who willingly wants to make bad trades.
Hopefully this might give an "aha!" moment to some people, but I'm going to take a guess that seasoned traders are already quite clued in.
1. If an immediate term moving average is not sloped in the way you think the market is moving, then do not anticipate a trend continuation. Do not forecast and assume "Well it's going to change again soon, I can guess this correctly". Don't even go there. Be patient and expect the unexpected.
2. Expect a short term correction on liquidity at any time. This comes back to the point of not attempting to forecast what's going to happen in the next few bars.
3. Use the news to back up your analysis. You don't need to enter a trade based on news (the newswire publications are slightly delayed anyway), but instead you can use the news to back up your own sentiment in the market. For example: If the Fed has a hawkish stance and talked tough about fighting inflation, then you could say that EURUSD might be in a bearish trend for the next few sessions, or even the full week.
4. Taking a buy in a downtrend is very risky. If you want to do it, take less risk by using a lower lot size, and set the take profit slightly lower than the previous swing high.
5. Regardless of the current regime, you shouldn't close a buy in a small loss if several indicators are showing a bullish trend change in the current 15-minute candles. Instead of closing out of fear, there's a likelihood of profiting on a bullish correction.
6. Don't assume you know exactly where a strong support or strong resistance is. Let the market prove itself with a divergence. Also realize that any support or resistance can always be broken.
7. Accept that not all trades will be winners, but good trading is allowing winners to grow, and getting losers to end appropriately in a small loss.
