Day Off Today - Perfect Trade Missed!

Hello everyone,

I'm not trading today. My girlfriend is graduating from her masters (with distinction no less) so I'm currently waiting on her getting ready and listening to her stressing over just about everything there is to stress over.

Since I knew we would be leaving early and I wouldn't be able to trade properly, I made the decision not to trade at all. Sensible decision, since I knew that I would be more inclined to look for a trade rather than wait for a trade, due to time constraints. So anyway, as I was getting ready I opened up IG on my phone - Hello my name is James and I have a trading addiction - and wouldn't you know it, there was a perfect setup after the 8 am open. The candle shot down, rejected and formed a strong pin bar right on support. Hopefully everyone who took the trading course identified the zone and took the trade!

So I missed an easy trade with a  strong bullish run right after it. That's just the market's way of toying with me I guess. But at the end of the day I know it doesn't matter. There are trades every day, sometimes several of them. It's important not to get involved in the charts emotionally and become frustrated. I could quite easily have tried to rush an order through on my phone to 'catch the trend'. But I didn't, because that would have been silly. It would have been a trade based on the wrong foundations - mainly frustration at missing such a nice move.

This will happen to you a LOT during your trading career. I'm not talking about just missing trades when you have days off. But even during the trading day, you'll miss big moves, perhaps from areas you identified but just didn't think was strong enough to trade from. I do it all the time. Again, that old phrase I keep chirping out - it's part of trading.

The 95% see that move and get irritated and either try and jump on the move, or they are then so worked up that they enter into a random trade through frustration. This is never a good idea and it ends with the 95% doing what the 95% do best - feeding the market and handing their hard earned money to the 5% who are disciplined and detached.

Ok, my girlfriend is telling me it's time to get going. A Masters with distinction is quite an achievement and I'm clearly proud of her. Although I can't put too much weight behind it. She can't be THAT intelligent... She's dating me after all!

I hope you've all had a great trading week!