R-0.8: EURJPY Shorts

H4 was in downtrend so labeled H4 supply. Price retraced to this level so took a short off it initially on the M30 and then on the H1. Both failed but did manage to keep losses small, -0.2R and -0.6R respectively due to trailing stop on trend bars (nearly a time stop on the H1 chart). 

Trade 1

Trade 2

Summary: Happy with first trade as this was in the plan,  unhappy with second trade as this is not what my plan dictates, I'm not even meant to be trading off the H1 chart! However today did highlight a flaw/hole in my plan = what action to take when a trade fails as in trade 1. Let's be honest trade failure is no rarity so this is quite an oversight, in the past I have SAR'd (stop and reversed) the position but this is a little harder to plan on longer timeframes and keep decent RRR's. 

NB: after 2.5 bars the H1 trade was still at break even,  despite it inherently being wrong I feel a time stop could really have started to have been entertained by that sort of time not the full 3 bars as usual. Something to add to rules. 

The fact is as I am trading off longerterm S&D, so when a trade fails it can be quite confusing as short term price action is floating on it, which looks a mess. It also stands to reason that when I am taking a long term (H4) trend the medium term trend (M30) will be counter to it, as it has had to retrace to a H4 S/D level.  So if i'm going to look  to take the other side of a long term trade (H4trend) I should be looking on the medium term chart (M30 trend) for entry levels. AND so the following rule I am now going to add to my trade plan: should a Long term trade fail (m30 price off H4 S/D) update M30 levels and drill down to M5 to perhaps get in on a SAR (stop and reverse) of the long term trend.

Example SAR

TO DO's

1.time stop can be introduced from around 2.5 - 3 bars of price action.

2. labeling M30 S&D a different colour than H4 is helpful.

3. Add SAR rule: should a Long term trade fail (m30 price off H4 S/D) update M30 levels and drill down to M5 to perhaps get in on a SAR (stop and reverse) of the long term trend.