Sometimes it Takes Multiple Attempts – 3

We all love those trades that move straight from entry to the target.

But unfortunately that’s not always the case.

Sometimes the market likes to remind us that it doesn’t give a damn about our expectations. And that it prefers to instead screw around with our mind and emotions, to see if it can chop us up a little first before then moving on to the target.

As much as you wish this wasn’t the case, the reality of price action is that it will often test, retest and even probe through levels to check the other side.

Your choice is to either accept this and learn to work with it, or remain ever frustrated as you sit on the sidelines with a loss and watch the market move to the target without you.

I think the better option is to accept it. And learn to work with it.

So let’s start with the summary lessons from a series of prior articles. Lessons which I believe to be an incredibly important part of all trader’s growth & development:

• (a) It’s unrealistic to expect that every trade will go immediately to your target. Sometimes a trade idea will require multiple attempts.
• (b) Two failures – stop and reassess. Reconsider the original trade premise, but also be sure to consider the idea that you are completely wrong. And also that maybe you have no idea of what is happening and need to stand aside.
• (c) Three failures – time out. Wait for a change of structure and only then look for the next trade idea.
• (d) And maybe… consider the idea that a key goal in your trading should be to not only know how to find quality trade ideas, but also to get good at surviving those times when the trade idea doesn’t quite match what the market is actually offering. Because sometimes… it takes multiple attempts!

These findings came from the following two articles, if you wish to review them in full:

(1) Trading BPB short on a retest of the prior day’s high resistance: Sometimes It Takes Multiple Attempts – 1

(2) Trading BPB short on a retest of multiple prior day’s highs and lows: Sometimes It Takes Multiple Attempts – 2

To be honest, this is so common that I could make this idea the ONLY blog post I produce each week.

So let’s look at another sequence from recent days.

See here for last-week’s article on the first scale-out exit.

Repeating:

• (a) It’s unrealistic to expect that every trade will go immediately to your target. Sometimes a trade idea will require multiple attempts.
• (b) Two failures – stop and reassess. Reconsider the original trade premise, but also be sure to consider the idea that you are completely wrong. And also that maybe you have no idea of what is happening and need to stand aside.
• (c) Three failures – time out. Wait for a change of structure and only then look for the next trade idea.
• (d) And maybe… consider the idea that a key goal in your trading should be to not only know how to find quality trade ideas, but also to get good at surviving those times when the trade idea doesn’t quite match what the market is actually offering. Because sometimes… it takes multiple attempts!

Happy trading,

Lance Beggs