Throughout my first year of trading full-time I've learned some pretty valuable lessons. Unfortunately most of these lessons came at the expense of me losing money. I suppose those are the lessons that hurt the most and therefore make the biggest impact in the future.  One of the lessons learned was to make sure that I was 100% comfortable with my trading strategy "live market" before trying it out. A say live market because although back testing is great, it's not the same as watching it occur live with the right side of your screen being blank.

The other day I noticed an interesting setup occurring in the market. It wasn't an ABCD, double top/bottom or any other type of advanced pattern (which is what I usually trade), rather it was simple analysis of structure and a zone in which I thought price action would retrace to and reverse. (In hindsight I guess you can maybe call it a head and shoulders pattern but I'm really not polished in analyzing that pattern nor do I look for them.) Anyway when price reversed to the point that I thought it would go I was SO tempted to enter a trade in hopes of grabbing some quick profit. (After all I had just came of 2 winning trades so I couldn't be wrong about this one right? LOL.)   Then I realized what I was saying. "In hopes of grabbing some quick profit." This statement told me that I was indeed rushing into a trade that I really wasn't prepared to take with real money. Did I have a valid reason to trade this setup? Yes, but I was doing it for the wrong reasons, which was market revenge.  So instead of taking an unnecessary risk, I decided to just watch the trade play out and look at it as a training exercise.

A few days after identifying the trade, I noticed that it played out exactly as I hoped and would have hit my first target. Was I upset that I didn't enter the trade? No. I was actually proud of myself because it shows the maturity of my trading and not needing to feel like I need to catch every trade. It also allowed me to gain some confidence in my trading of this setup which no doubt will occur again. The point is that there is much more to be gained in the market then just pure profit. Of course profit is what we all want at the end of the day, but understanding that consistent profit comes from smart decision making rather than impulse trading is the mindset needed to dominate this market.  I will take not gaining money over losing money any day of the week.

For more detail on what I was looking at with this pair please visit the "Chart Talk" section of my website.   http://iambusiness.weebly.com/chart-talk.html

Thanks Akil L. Stokes

@IambusinessTR