A common fault of recent trades has been a lack of patience at the final entry hurdle. Pleasingly, this was not the case with the last two trades.
A touch of the weekly 3SMA is simply a signal to get interested. I noticed a lot of my best trades came the week after a weekly 3SMA touch. Often there would be an H4 QM then a final M5 QM as the entry trigger. Waiting for all this confirmation reduces blowouts, but takes patience and a lack of FOMO (fear of missing out).
Entry on this trade could have been a touch better. There was an M1 bat at 98.50, but I entered at 98.46 on some bearish M1 bars. Slightly disappointing. Had I waited for 0.886XA, I would have shorted the day's high and had the perfect trade, so I guess I still did falter slightly, there is always room for improvement. Stops were placed 20 pips through the H1 bat's X at 98.79.
After entry I got a small draw down of 6 pips, before price pushed down to 98.12 by London Open. Fortunately I was not watching the subsequent retracement, and found price around 98.20 (0.7R) at the New York open. Price had not reached 1R, so I had not moved stops to break even.
Half an hour after New York open we got strong ISM data. Risk rallied and USDCAD broke the London low. 1R had been reached and stops were moved break even. It took discipline not to close immediately for a 1R gain. I reminded myself that patience and discipline are just as important when in a position, and asked myself "would you like to be a buyer at these levels?" The answer was "no", so I started to look for areas where I would consider buying as levels to cover my short.
I found a measured move with IQM at 97.96 and decided to use this as my profit target. Fortunately we got there and I covered on the lows at 97.98 for a +47 pip/1.37R return. Not huge, but I milked about as much as I could. I was conscious of achieving 1.5R, and although not quite getting there, it served as a good guide and encouraged me to hold the short. 1.5R could have been achieved had I entered better, but the exit was good, so overall a well managed trade.
