Same Mistakes Again

Today I did what I promised not to do again.  That is to trade without a stop loss and adding (doubling down) to a losing trade.  This occurred on Gold.  I saw a trend change take place but I thought (wrongly) that it was just a retrace and that we would go back in the up trend.  So when I saw price moving back up in an impulsive manner, I took a long and went into profit about 10 ticks and was feeling good about the trade. 

However, the trade began to go against me and I started to add more lots.  The draw down became larger and larger and the trade would not go back to break even on the retraces.  Fortunately, I spotted what I believed to be a high probability demand area from yesterday and added some more lots.  This co-incided with a climactic bar so I thought it would at least get me back to break even.  And I was right this time.  Phew.

Not only did it get me back to break even, I actually made some profit on it and exited at a supply area, whereupon, price fell another 100 ticks.  I really should have re-joined the downtrend here and at least make a good trade, after seeing a sell signal.

I also took a buy scalp, after I saw exhaustion in the down trend, but only took 5 ticks and watched price go up another 50 ticks.

The above trade was on Sim, but I did make a trade on my live account, which, fortunately was in the direction of the down trend, after I realised that my sim trade was wrong.  However, I closed too early when price started to retrace and only took 5 ticks and watched as price fell another 110 ticks from my exit. Blast and damnation.  I still get it wrong, even when I trade in the right direction.

When am I ever going to learn?

Hopefully, the lessons learned from these bad trades will eventually get through my thick skull and one day, I may become the Trader I want to be.