Never judge a missed trade by how it looks AFTER THE SESSION.
Always judge a missed trade by how it looked AT THE RIGHT-HAND SIDE OF THE SCREEN AT THE TIME OF ENTRY.
This article is in response to a question I received based upon the following image, from this prior article – https://yourtradingcoach.com/trading-process-and-strategy/how-do-you-find-time-to-plan-a-trade-on-a-1-minute-timeframe/
Here is the question I received:
- Thank you Lance, again, for your recent article. One question that has stuck in my mind comes from the second image where you talk about the earlier missed entry. You said you can see it's an obvious trap entry point. But you weren't looking for that. Why not? Why did you miss the trade? Because, I agree with what you said. It looks obvious.
Check the prior article if you missed it – https://yourtradingcoach.com/trading-process-and-strategy/how-do-you-find-time-to-plan-a-trade-on-a-1-minute-timeframe/.
Ok, this is a common error.
It's so easy to look back at a chart post-session and find the largest and smoothest price swings. And then analyse the entry point to find the obvious way to get into that trade.
Followed shortly after by calling ourselves all kinds of names for having missed such a blindingly obvious entry. And then vowing to never make such a newbie error again.
Let's try it with this trade…
But it's not like that.
Trades look different at the hard right edge of the screen.
Here is the same missed trade from a different perspective, looking back at some earlier structure and positioning the entry point at the right-hand side.
I'm ok with missing this trade. I feel my assessment at the hard right edge was reasonable. I accept that you can't catch them all. And this is simply one that was not mine to catch. Hopefully you were able to catch it and profit from the whole move.
YES… we must review our charts post-session.
And it's very important to review the strongly directional price swings that were missed.
But make sure that the primary part of this review occurs at the hard right-hand edge of the screen.
Is it really something you should have caught? Or are you influenced by the hindsight view of the trade outcome?
Because the simple fact is….
as much as you'd love to…
You can't catch them all.
Happy trading,
Lance Beggs
Hi Lance,
In the 3rd chart you have mentioned “attempt to change the structure”. But if the structure is sideways as denoted in the 5th chart, how would it change the structure in between sideways range boundaries?
We were looking at the small chart segment only, as it was posted in the original article. Remember that the person who requested more info about how I missed the trade only saw it as a downtrend. They were not aware of the sideways structure. From their perspective, it was a potential change of structure. This 3rd image is looking at the setup from their perspective. Sorry if this was not clear.
Thank you.
By the way, this is one great article which will help me in avoiding low probability trades, as that is not just financially but also psychologically damaging, as you say.