I'm a Loser. But the Best Loser Wins.
A raw look at a brutal trading day, accepting losses, and why the best traders are the ones who lose well. Real talk on trading psychology and sticking to your plan.
Brutal day to buy the close, but that's what I do. Longs looked good! What do I say? I lost.
I face multiple questions during the day. Here's one of them:
RTH or ETH?
Regular Trading Hours or Electronic Trading Hours? On the second trade, the close was cleanly above the 20 EMA on RTH, and it looked low. Had reversal written all over it. It looked like the EMA would hold price above it on that close, but it was still below the 20 EMA on ETH, which was bearish.
As much as I want to backtest the 20 EMA on RTH vs ETH, I'm just going to continue trading where it is on the RTH. That's pretty much why I broke even on my second trade.
Back to my loser.
The market had no fucking reason to reverse when it did. If you know why, respond to this. I'd love to know.
My reasoning? Yes, it rejected the gap. Yes, we were below the open, sellers were probably looking for a measured move, and there had been no downtrend pullback yet. But that's about it.
After the fact? I know it allowed me to get out. I thought about it after that doji close. It was a bad follow-through bar. I didn't get out. Buyer momentum just wasn't there.
The lesson.
Fuck it. Trade your plan. Don't worry about why, and don't overthink the analysis. The loss means nothing to me. I saw another good signal later and got out too soon there too. I could be break-even on the day, but I accepted what happened. On to tomorrow.
I explained this pretty well, but if you want more details on how to lose properly, go here.
The best loser wins.
Get The System →Past performance is not indicative of future results. Trade at your own risk.