First Three Trades

Well, my first three trades have all hit their stoploss...sadly.  This is a very bad start to my first live account.  Let's review the trades:  the first one was USDCAD (sell), the set-up that triggered this trade was an IB Fakey combo on the daily chart.  It didn't 50% retrace before it started to take off, so initially I wasn't going to get in to this trade (I felt that I had missed the boat so to speak).  But after speaking to one of my friends, he said that frequently price will at least retest the break of the pinbar on the fakey.  So, I decided to set a pending order.  There were many IB Fakey combos on daily charts that day!  I felt that this showed confluence that we were about to see a correction (dollar devaluation), also known as "risk on".  So, there was one more trade that I took a chance on AUDUSD (which displayed an IB Fakey combo)...setting a pending to buy on it, as well.

Unfortunately, I decided to set my stoploss for the USDCAD trade at the 50% retrace point of the pinbar (remember entry was at the break of the pinbar) because I felt that price wouldn't reach this point.  I was wrong and got stopped out when price moved back up to test that level. 

Still believing that this level was holding, I decided to open another trade, this one a buy on NZDUSD (which also had an IB Fakey combo).  When the dollar strengthened it gave me a better entry point for that trade, so I kind of felt like I was getting a bargain for getting in.  Then, my friend who I had been talking to about my trades said that he was getting into the USDCAD trade going short (same as I had done), but now price was at a better position...so I decided to try it again.  Actually, everything seemed ok for a bit, price was moving as expected...then it changed direction.  Basically, price started moving beyond the high/low of the pinbar on the fakey.  So, now I had to decide whether to move my stoploss a little (which I did) or let it close out and lose the money (which I eventually did) because I don't know whether these were false signals now at this point.  They SHOULD have worked out nicely, due to the confluence I was seeing all of these signals among many pairs...indicating the dollar was going to fall.  Also, the IB Fakey combo is normally a very good signal (including pinbars!), AND the price level that was being tested hadn't been touched in months (March/April/May timeframe)...so I really believed that we were seeing a correction about to take place with the USD. 

The AUDUSD trade is still open btw...it was less volatile due to some good news that came out regarding their economy on Thursday I believe.  AUDUSD has gone nowhere near the high/low of it's pinbar.  Still, the trade is currently in the negative. 

My account has taken a hit as a result of these three trades, and mentally, I need to stabalize.  I am staying calm, but I need to make some changes here.  First of all, I shouldn't have had three trades going at once (risking 2% each)...and all of them majors which makes me triple exposed to the USD.  I am decreasing my risk limit to 1% (unfortunately, I'll be building up slower this way...but also will lose more slowly if I am wrong).  And I won't expose myself to more than one trade on the same currency unless I see that it is already moving in my direction...(building momentum). 

The problem I face at the moment is, I still think I might have been right about the direction of the price movement concerning these USD pairs...price basically dipped down, stopped me out and then reversed (at this time anyway).  So, now we are heading in to the weekend and this is no time to enter new trades when there is no clear direction.  I am going to close my AUDUSD trade before I lose anymore money on it.  This is tough, but it appears that I made the wrong call here.

One last thought, we are entering into what will probably be a crisis reminiscent (or even worse) than the crash of 2008.  In reviewing what price did during that time, the USD skyrocketed in value...so maybe what we are seeing here is the beginning of that?  I HATE that I lost my first few trades, especially when the signals were strong and setups valid...but maybe this is why price didn't seem to be following the rules here.  If we are seeing the beginning of a movement where price chooses a definitive direction, that presents a BIG money making opportunity.  So, I guess if that were to happen, I could pyramid trade and build up my account quickly...so, that would be the brightside of this scenario.