My winning trades - 11 Feb 2025

There are so many benefits in taking a good quality trade. I had 2 winning trades that were closed today. Let us look at the best of these trades first.

The above trade was taken on the 10 Feb. The trade entry was the first 15 minute candle of trading. The first candle was a clean and powerful bullish elephant bar off the 200 period moving average after a period of relatively tight consolidation. It is important to note that on the daily chart the FTSE was looking very bullish.

This trade was taken exactly as per my rules and a set up that is picture perfect! This trade ripped to the upside and I rode it until I closed it for a return of almost 3 times my risk. This trade was not without fault though! The profit is shown below.

I have had quite a losing streak as of late and this had played on my mind. I was fearful to let the trade run. I had marked on the levels of a 50% pullback and I didn't stick to my rules of holding on until it was seen whether this level would have held. Instead I closed the trade today. Had I done this I would have still been in the trade sitting on a much more attractive unrealised return for which I would have taken a profit equal to what I have realised now with part of the trade still open.

This was a strong reminder to myself that sticking to profit taking rules is critical.

This was a slightly proftable trade but let us not focus on that fact as it is irrelevant if the entry was incorrect and to be honest it is dangerous to be rewarded on trades that you should not have taken in the first place.

As a state of mind I wasn't in the zone and I know I was trying to force a reason to enter a trade. I was looking for anything to justify that this was a pull back in price and the price was going to resume to the upside.

The entry candle is marked on the chart. There are a couple of things that are clearly wrong with this entry point from my rules perspective:

• The candle did not close before I entered the trade. If it had closed I would not or should not have taken the trade because at close the price had started to reduce, showing that the bears were active; and

• There was no elephant bar. My rules clearly state that a trigger for all trades will be an elephant sized bar that is accompanied by volume. There had been a volume spike but that volume had not managed to print a good sized candle

I am thankful that I closed the trade and the small profit is purely academic.

Trade Clearly!