This trade was an interesting lesson in psychology. I went long December Crude Oil Futures at 19:15 UK time. I was a bit nervous about the trade, because of the EU summit talks on the debt crisis in Greece. I decided to hold it though and the trade moved into profit nicely.

Later in the evening I got filled short on the S&P 500 thus effectively hedging myself. I should have cancelled the S&P 500 order on hindsight, but anyway this blog is about honesty and openness in my learning as a trader. I was happy with the trade moving into profit and was about to go to bed when I thought that the risk I had on the table was too much. I decided to leave the S&P 500 trade open because I thought that the EU muppets would not come to an agreement and therefore both crude oil and S&P would tank. I looked at the crude oil chart and we had two red candles at the first trouble area, so I closed the position for a 5.4% account increase.

December crude 5.4% gain

On hindsight I should have left the crude order and cut the S&P. But then it’s much harder to cut a loser and let a winner run psychologically. I know all this stuff intellectually, but I haven’t really internalised it all yet. I must have no fear in cutting losers early if there are signs to get out. I’m going to strive to do this from now on.

I really must pay more attention to what I’m doing. I placed an order to sell December Crude when I really meant to sell November Crude. The same mistake I made last week. Luckily this time it didn’t affect the outcome too much, but I must take more care when placing orders, especially with futures contracts. Here’s the entry at 88.84 – this should have been 88.84 on November Crude which would have got me in on the top third of the pin bar. The November Crude trade would have been less risky and with more profit potential.

The market did nothing for a while and as the order was a mistake on the wrong market, I tightened the target to get me out early. My original target was 165 ticks away, but I moved it to 59 ticks.  I don’t want to be sitting in a riskier trade than I originally intended so the target was moved to the first trouble area (FTA). Once I had done this I went to bed. When I awoke in the morning the target had been hit and I had taken 59 ticks. This was a poor trade and I hope my mistakes become less frequent. Here’s the outcome:

This trade increased the account by 3.1% so it wasn’t ALL bad.