Caught Off Guard Three Days in a Row

I've been caught off guard three trading days in a row, a testament to the unpredictability of the markets.   Let me recap:

Day 1 - Friday, I took my stop losses off during the US economic announcement and the price spiked against me big time.  A little while later, the price spiked the totally opposite way and I was able to take some of the losses back.  If I would have kept my stop losses intact, I would have been even for the day, not down over 100 pips.

Day 2 - Monday, I was short three positions and price movement even after the US economic announcement was weak.  I closed my positions for 0 P/L going against my rules and maybe giving in a little to fear.   A short time later, the price started moving and my positions would have closed on their own with a nice profit.  This definitely isn't the first time I've closed out positions before they've reached their potential.  

Day 3 - I always have my long and short orders in before I go to bed.  I put my short orders in but not my long because I figured the price was too far from the long entry to ever trigger.  My short orders didn't trigger but my long orders would have so I missed out on a nice profit.

You may notice that I've underlined the WOULD HAVE's.  It's easy to say this in hindsight but it is a fact that if I followed my rules like I've done in the past, I'd be up over 200 pips after Day 1, 2, and 3.   Instead, I'm down over 100 pips.  

I'm not going to beat myself up over this but it's just something that I want to keep in mind.  These are the type of things you can never tell anyone to be on the look out for.  I couldn't tell you to follow your rules because of the mistakes I've made.  I think you have to make the mistakes on your own to realize this.   Mistakes are good if you use them to improve in the future. 

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