Golden Gartley - Exit

GC Apr 4hr

Well, that went well...not! News came out that Putin decided to invade the Ukraine and Gold went nuts. Straight up like a bottle rocket. Fortunately, I had a Stop working at 1845. At 16:45 ET, the high today was 1867.40. If I ratcheted my Stop up, or worse, deleted it, my situation would have been much worse.

My gut reaction is always "What did I do wrong?" and whether I did something wrong or not the next question is "What can I learn from this?", then finally "How can I improve my trading going forward?". 

The answer to the first question is I didn't do anything wrong. I entered a valid pattern that has about a 75% Win Rate, which means it fails 25% of the time. This is one of those trades in the 25%. Its that simple. I followed my rules, so I didn't do anything wrong.

What I can learn is always use a Stop. And unless there's some unusual circumstance, don't move it because you think it might get hit. Duh! 

Also, its a good opportunity to learn how to accept a loss. It feels bad, but you know before you go into the trade there's a significant chance it will fail. So why feel bad when it happens? Because its human. But it helps to remember there will be many trades in the future where this pattern will win. Its been in the public about 36 years thanks to Mr.  H.M. Gartley. So we know it's reliable. No need to start blaming this and that. It doesn't matter. This pattern will occasionally fail no matter what.

Once you have a methodology with an edge, all that matters is your faithful execution.

Bottom line:

1814.90 Entry - 1845.10 Stop  = -30.2 pts * $10/pt = -$302.00 loss.