What a Setback!

All I can say is that I had quite a setback today.  I'm writing this as my positions just closed out so I'm really disappointed at my stupidity.   Quite simply, I was trying something new and I got bit.

I was short on a 3 position GBP/USD trade that was profitable most of the European session yet not enough to hit breakeven or profit targets.  Then came the US CPI economic announcement this morning.  I have never felt comfortable being in any position going into an important US announcement and this time was no different.  I took my stop losses off the positions with the thought that I would close manually 1 minute after the announcement if my positions were down.  My reasoning? I wanted to prevent from a false spike taking me out of the positions which had happened many times before only to find out I was right.   If anyone was watching the market, you know what happened.  The price did spike but got pegged GBP bullish, the complete opposite of my positions.  I didn't even have time to close out my positions in a timely manner.  I painfully closed all 3 positions at a 75 pip loss each which was 2 1/2 times greater than my normal stop.  

This trade hurts for many reasons:

1. I went from being profitable by 129 pips in December to -96 pips in December
2. Went against my own good judgment
3. I was very patient all week and lost it in a minute
4. Not only does this wipe out my profits for December but also for November and part of October

So you can see how damaging 1 trade can be and it's not even the money that affects me as much as the mental setback.  It's going to take some work to get back to where I was.  

The positives from all of this? I don't foresee ever taking my stop loss off the table again.  Never, ever.  In addition, sometimes I need a big punch in the face to remind me that things like this can happen. 

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