Hello Traders!
This week was not great I will admit, huge gaps in my mental performance and problems with me actually understanding my strategy.
However, weeks like this often lead to great lessons so let’s see what value we can find.
(Tools I have used this week are featured at the bottom of the blog, including discounts!)
Trading Performance
Trades marked with * are mistakes
Monday – 1 loss, 1 no-tag*
Tuesday – 1 loss, 1 missed win*
Wednesday – 1 no-tag
Thursday – 1 loss*
Friday – 1 no-tag
I ended this week losing 1.5% of my account when the true result should have been a break even (0% gain) week.
What were the mistakes?
Monday:
The no-tag trade should have tagged me in but the reason it didn’t was because MT4 did not show the true wick for a valid trade. I did not clock this until it was too late and this is a complete human error as I should have seen the difference between TradingView and MT4.
Always mimic what TradingView does as that’s where you collected your data – MT4 broker feeds can often be wild.
What can I learn from this?
To be more vigilant. I have gotten into a comfort zone and therefore my focus is not on the ball.
Tuesday:
The missed win was due to me failing to mark up a valid POI. This is me confusing it with an invalid POI so I didn’t mark it up and within this POI was a valid trade which would have been a nice winner.
What can I learn from this?
Clearer outline on my POI drawing rules. Filter out and show which ones are valid and which are not. I have learnt from this lesson and built a sheet including valid & invalid POIs, as well as misconception POIs (ones easily confused), all tied with examples.
Thursday:
This trade was a systematic loss regardless but I messed up my entry point slightly and I wasn’t being mechanical. My thinking is that I was afraid to not be tagged in the trade but I would have been fine.
What can I learn from this?
Similar to POI drawing rules, I have built a clear outline/guide of when to execute X or Y, or Z scenarios with my entries, along with misconceptions and examples.
Overall, this week has been clear to me that I need to have a clearer outline of my plan, as well as retreating back into the cave of backtesting to gather more data with this cleared up plan.
With these lessons and new guides I have already started to review the backtesting data that I have and this has led to more interesting discoveries.
Backtesting Data Review
Now that I am going over my data with this clearer plan, I have found a few holes in the data I have collected.
So far I have found 4 invalid trades, data for a continuation model 4 times, and found 1 missing trade idea.
This hasn’t impacted the overall results of the strategy at all over the long run and it’s still extremely profitable based on the data that I have so far.
I would like to share the results table with you but I cannot remove the invalid trades as Google Sheets keeps breaking in other areas of the sheet and I am trying to find a fix (I am not good with Sheets!)
Mindset
As the week progressed I thought I was acing it with my mindset and to be fair, on Wednesday, my focus was brilliant. I barely got distracted and my focus was completely on the charts – time flew by!
That being said, there are clearly some problems that I need to deal with when it comes to my focus and reading the charts but at least now with a cleared up strategy (with everything outlined to avoid confusion) things should be ‘easier’…if there is such a thing in trading 😄
Announcement!
With the knowledge that I have gained this week, needing to go over my data, gather new data, and as volatility/volume lowers as we approach the holiday season, I have decided to stop live trading for the rest of the year.
I didn’t quite achieve my first pay out before the end of my trading year but that’s okay with me, becoming a funded trader is enough and I am still proud about it.
I will get back to live trading in the last week of January so in the meantime, you can expect more data gathering.
Key Takeaway for the Week
Mistakes will happen and your live performance will slip but that’s okay, so long as you are willing to find the mistakes, see where you can improve, and keep moving forward.
Imagine if a week like above happened to you but instead of reflecting on your performance, you just kept going. I’d bet you’d lose the funded account in a month’s time with decent risk management.
Now that I have reflected, I have a good 2 month plan ahead to execute for more data gathering. This will make 2026 a fantastic year and I’ll hit the ground running.
For now, back to the backtesting grind!
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If you enjoyed this Weekly Overview, please share it by copying the website URL, or by taking a screenshot.
As promised, here are the tools I have used this week and a discount code for Magic Keys:
- Magic Keys (for 25% off, use code: MKMETEORTRADINGFX)
- TradingView
- FTMO (funded account challenge)
Check out the Tools page for more info
Thank you for taking the time to read this blog post, it means a lot to me.
See you next week and happy trading!
