When you enter a trade… how much pressure do you put on yourself by debating whether you should hold or exit? Do you feel the same kind of pressure and the same amount of pressure whether you are in profit or a loss?
For me, I prefer the least amount of stress in EVERY trade. That means… you’ve heard it many times, “in and out quickly, whenever it goes against me”. Now, I know that can be a challenge sometime, especially when you’re applying that to a loss… but is that really any different than a trade in profit? It depends somewhat on your personality and temperament to a certain degree… but… what it REALLY depends on is… your ability to REALLY KNOW YOUR CURRENCY PAIR.
Sure, there WILL be surprises. In fact, I’m going to show you one in just a moment. But, most of the time, it is truly quite easy to “see the same patterns over and over” on a currency pair, and when you see Price interacting with a Logical Forex Magnet Line, and all the rest of the Logical Forex Indicators showing the Decision Points in the market… where professional traders are “hunting”… we CAN know what to do… and when there are surprises… we just… respond accordingly.
So, here was my surprise…
### EUR/USD Market Structure
There have been more of these kinds of trades, it seems, the past several weeks. What I mean is… when I zoom out, and see “price near the top”, I am extremely cautious about entering a buy. I’d usually prefer to see the market structure appear a bit different… you know, I’ve mentioned this many times… but, as I said, it seems quite often recently the market has “taken off” even though the zoomed out perspective shows things “at the top”.
Maybe this is a function of “uncertain economic times”. Whatever. I don’t really care. All I really have to know is… are there any news events that might surprise me? and… can I interpret the Market Flow and the Decision Points with the Logical Forex Indicators. YES! That’s all I need… other than I have to make sure the Market and ME are “in sync”… I’m mentally alert and ready to trade… and the market makes sense to me. Good! It did. Consider taking a trade… making sure that price TELLS you what it IS doing (no predicting!)
EUR/USD Market Structure
(Remember, you can always click the images to see a bigger chart. It opens in a new window. You can close that window to return here.)
*** TRADE #1
I then always wait for price to “do its dance” around the Logical Forex Magnet Lines. Sometimes that dance is a shuffle. Sometimes it is a sprint. Either way, I’m ready… I let price tell me what it IS doing… and I’ve seen these things a million times before (maybe literally) since I’ve practiced and practiced and practiced viewing chart patterns over and over… so that I know my currency pair like my spouse or my best friend.
And, when the price and the patterns make sense to me… I take the trade. No predicting. No over-analyzing. No hesitating. There is only one way in… to click the button on the broker software. There is only one way out… to click button on the broker software. When price goes against me… well, you know.
Yes, there is a bit of discretion. But it is not any kind of guessing. I know my currency pairs. I’ve practiced. I’ve trained myself… pattern matching… mentally… even physically with my “trading finger”. What’s left to do?
Take the trade. There are three basic outcomes. Only three. It will be profitable. It will be a loss. It will be break-even. End of story. Everything else is a matter of “how much”. I DO NOT CONTROL “HOW MUCH”. I DO CONTROL ME.
So, let’s enter…
EUR/USD Scalp
Let’s review… now that we have entered the trade… what can happen?
Only three basic things will happen now. Put simply, all I have done is… TRY THE TRADE. That’s it. I don’t know the outcome. I AM somewhat confident that I have taken a trade that will be profitable – not because I’m predicting, or because I’m a prophet, or because my “math says so”. No, I’m only trying the trade… and I entered the trade because the Market Made Sense To Me, given the Logical Forex Indicators showing me the Flow and Decision Points in the market… and my countless hours of practice and real-life experience. It is no different than YOU!
Exit #1
Okay… now I’m in the trade… WHEN DO I EXIT? How long do I hold?… bleh… I can feel my stress building just asking those questions. No! There is no need to do that. ALL profit is good. ANY profit is good. And what makes this SO powerful is… because of how you apply Logical Forex… you can be consistent… and consistently profitable… and it really does “add up quickly”… and best of all… with NO stress.
Let’s see where I exited… consider what YOU would have done…
EUR/USD Scalp
So, where would YOU have exited? 
I can hear some people… right now… saying “is he crazy?” Perhaps they might be right.. but not about my trading… because my NO STRESS trading works for ME… and I just made around 10 pips net… with, uhm, no stress. No predicting. No over-analyzing. No hesitating.
But… but what about all that POTENTIAL PROFIT I “missed”. Well… how could I have know that at the time I exited? Yes, it is fair to ask… if I know my currency pair so well, couldn’t I have “held on longer”. Well, I suppose so, but, I also know MY tolerances and preferences, too. And they play a large role in ALL of our trading experiences. In other words, some of you would have held longer, and that is OKAY!
For me, I’ll take my no-stress 10 pip net, and get ready for another trade that, well, looks quite similar on the charts… the way the Logical Forex Indicators show me. And, I’ll repeat this process… consistently… have a lot of fun doing it… and eliminate my stress.
And… you do remember… as you build up your equity… you Trade More Lots… one time a day is plenty in many cases… and I can do that in about 20-30 minutes every day. You can too. Yes, you know this too… sometimes I do like to continue trading after my “big trade”, and when I want to do that, I seriously reduce my lot sizes so that I’m not likely to eat up my “big trade profits”.
Logical Forex trading really is simple. Keep it that way. Have fun with it.
-Greg
Great post, Greg! I love how you break trading down into something simple – know your currency pair, pattern-match, TRY the trade, don’t be greedy. Then repeat.
-Scott
Hi Greg,
Fine self expression; was fun reading between my trading sets. Keep on the good work.
Thanks Scott and Ali. I’m continually amazed how wonderfully repetitive and consistent the patterns are, and how this allows us to trade… the same way. I so much enjoy being able to trade with no stress… something we can do quite easily with Logical Forex.
-Greg
Hindsight is always so easy,
but I probably would have stayed in because
1) the upward penetration was through 2 blue magnet lines,
2) nice flow line separation, and
3) price had not penetrated the Groove Line.
Waiting for this penetration and the yellow bar would be a definite exit signal, 3 pips from the tip.
But it also depends on how the far the price had previously fallen and how long it took to get to 00:46. The yellow bar basing had only taken place about 15 minutes, which is not overly long for a consolidation.
Hi Dean.
From what you’ve written here, and in a few support tickets, you tend to incorporate “history” into your trading much more than I do. I use the history to simply “frame” the Decision Points… especially when price is interacting with a Logical Forex Magnet Line… and history plays has almost no role in my exit decisions… except the history of the past few moments.
That doesn’t mean what YOU would do is “bad”. It’s just you tend to hold longer, and likely think about many things much longer than I do… and I prefer not thinking as hard as I used to, and just trading with the obvious flow, both on entry and on exit.
Said a bit differently, consider how your “holding strategy” might change if you are trading 1 lot… or 20 lots. When you can make that “holding strategy” be the same, no matter how many lots you’re trading, ALL trades look the same… and that has a powerful “set you free” aspect that is a joy to live every trade.
-Greg
Very true remark, Greg. I am not a member yet. The most money I have lost on forex in one day was when I bought only one single lot. When I enter with 5 lots, I am very wide awake and carefull! That is the difference in emotion, if I know a snake is not piosonous I handle it careless, if it is deadly I don’t.
I like this idea of in and out in minutes with tiny stoplosses. The forextrading scene has changed a lot, I think in future this would become the only way to trade profitable for us, the individual small account trader.
Yes, Giliam, you are exactly right… how our focus and commitment can make such a huge difference in our trading.
It does sound a bit odd, but like you, I find it easier to trade bigger lot sizes than smaller ones. I guess I tend to consider it “playing” with smaller lot sizes. In fact, I describe this mental shift in detail in some of the training materials. In just a few words, I prefer to take one large lot trade, then if my “addiction to trade” is still running rampant, I tend to reduce my lot size to about 10% of what I traded in my “big lot trade”. That way, I really can kind of “play”, and it doesn’t take me long to figure out if I’m “having fun playing” – and if not, I don’t do much damage to my profits I took from my big lot trade.
You’re going to enjoy Logical Forex.
-Greg