learning to be comfortable in uncertainty
so i've been trading my funded accounts for about 4 days now. first two days were green. then yesterday, i lost $205. what's frustrating is that i my read was right. my bias played out. so if it did, how come i ended the day with a loss?
let me tell you why. it's because i micromanaged my trade and kept renegotiating. in trading, you'll always hear the words, only risk what you can afford to lose – all traders know this. i know this. so when you enter a trade, you're supposed to have already decided where your stop loss is, what percentage of your account you're risking, or exact amount you're willing to lose.
yesterday, i entered a trade. i had a pretty good entry at the top of the asia range and had my targets set. the thing though is, sometimes the market will move fast. sometimes it won't. yesterday happened to be one of the latter. so i watched the price chop. when it finally moved, i thought i have to protect this trade.
i moved my stop loss to breakeven. it tagged me out. i entered again. price went to my favor again. this time i was up about +70 points. then i thought, price could reverse from here and all these profits will be gone. so i trailed my stop loss to +40 points. that way if it comes back, i'd be out of the trade but still in profit. sounded like proper trade management, right?
but then price takes my trailing stop. then few minutes later, it dumps straight to my target profit. now that's where things started to go downhill. i was fucking right but i got shaken out of the market before it played out. then the tilt comes in and that's where i abandon all my plans and trade based on emotions. all objectivity gone. i spiraled so hard.
the thing about trading is, every trader has different tilt triggers. i have many. do i get tilted when price goes to my favor then reverses to hit my stop loss? absolutely. do i get tilted when price moves to my favor and takes my trailing stop out? fuck yes.
but now i have to decide, which one hurts more and what do i value more? do i value securing smaller profits or do i value being correct more? am i more comfortable watching a trade go fifty, sixty, seventy points only to reverse and hit my stop loss?
right now, i'm honestly leaning on being right more - right in the sense that i can read the market correctly and execute correctly. that when i enter a trade, i have to trust my targets and stops. after all, i think being right more times than i am wrong is what i need to let me have the trust and confidence in myself that i am cut out for this. and for that to happen, i need to stop renegotiating whenever i am uncomfortable. when i entered a trade, i already made up my mind on how much i want to lose on this trade. there must not be any renegotiation. no widening my stops, no breaking even, no trailing. and same goes with my targets.
just trust and let it happen. and if i am wrong, i have to be able to accept that losses are part of trading. and that being wrong doesn't make me a bad person or a bad trader. it's just one of the many trades that i'll take and in the grand scheme of things, those few losses wouldn't matter as long as i keep executing my plan.