How did I trade today? 01122021

Sum­ma­ry: Got­ta take the good with the bad

Account (P&L): +0.65R

#fin­twit #order­flow #day­trad­ing #dai­lyre­port­card #day­trad­ing #trad­inglifestyle #day­trader­life #grasshop­per­sanony­mous #trad­ing­forex #trad­ing­com­modi­ties #NEXT

Every trad­ing day I recap my trades, includ­ing more than entries and exits. Why did I take the trade? How did I man­age the trade, my emo­tions and cog­ni­tive func­tion? All the good stuff as well as all the ugly of being a day trad­er. As always, feel free to reach out to me. 

My week­ly goal: 

• Don’t take trades where SL place­ment is sub­op­ti­mal. Instead, reassess for a bet­ter entry if pos­si­ble. Unless there is a planned momen­tum trade.

Good Pre-mar­ket routines

Good Ses­sion PECS

Good Trade selection

Fair Trade siz­ing or SL placement

Fair Trade Exe­cu­tion & Mgmt.

Good Risk Adjust­ed Returns

Yes Dai­ly review

Mup­pet meter (1 being best — 5 being worst): 2

Sum­ma­ry

• GOLD
  • IB: Trad­ed pulling back to VAH
  • C: Long 1856.27 SL 1851.23 TP 1866.25 (going against the H1 Three Inside Down)
    • Hypo 1: M15 Three Inside Up (not on the hour) at yes­ter­day ses­sion high near VAH. Will wait for a tran­si­tion to pos­si­ble M30 Bull Engulf
    • Closed as Bull Engulf
  • D: M15 drag­on­fly doji at LTF sup­ply and I closed the trade off at 0.65R. Not too hap­py with that as I should have let the trade tran­si­tion fur­ther in an exten­sion above IB as this was the prob­a­ble out­come after LTF price action tran­si­tioned to a M30 Bull Engulf. Will dis­sect later. 
    • Closed extend­ing over IB mak­ing HHs
  • E: M30 Inside Bar
  • Pack­ing up and going to the gym.

Hypos — GOLD

• Which hypo played out and how did I hypoth­e­size it play­ing out? How did it actu­al­ly play out? What did the pro­file and price action show?
• Hypo 1 — Return to Value
  • Pre­ferred: Price action rever­sal near VAH (per­haps even a quick rota­tion test­ing VAL and H4 C‑dem). In case of IB exten­sion down I’d pre­fer a failed auc­tion to neu­tral day extend­ing high­er. If price tra­vers­es down dur­ing IB I’d pre­fer an exten­sion up with sus­tained auction. 
  • 100%
  • We formed a H1 Three Inside Down pulling back top VAH but due to medi­um time frame as well as pro­file sen­ti­ment I went against this upon the cre­ation of a M15 Three Inside Up mon­i­tor­ing for a tran­si­tion to M30 Bull Engulf. 

How accu­rate was my assess­ment of mar­ket con­text? Was I aligned with mar­ket context?

• I did well here. I hypoth­e­sized a prob­a­ble out­come. Wait­ed for price action to hit the area of my lev­el and price action to con­firm and went in. 

How did I feel before, dur­ing, and after the trade?

• I felt good before, dur­ing and after even though I messed up SL place­ment and thus posi­tion siz­ing and thus my prof­it made. All good though as this was my first trade back into gold. Gold being quite the beast I will be less strict with myself. 

How well did I fol­low my process?

• Trade selec­tion
  • My selec­tion was great as it was per hypo 1. I stalked the trade. Visu­al­ized what I want­ed to see the trade tran­si­tion into and mon­i­tored for it. 
• Trade Siz­ing & SL placement
  • Due to obtain an entry from M15 I could have had bet­ter SL place­ment ie. tighter and thus my posi­tion and prof­it could have been bet­ter. Instead of adjust­ing my SL place­ment I went for the stan­dard SL size as I was at the time a lit­tle unsure if I had made the best entry as the M15 Three Inside Up wasn’t the strongest. 
• Trade Exe­cu­tion & Mgmt
  • The entry was good. The exit was not. I watched the M15 Three Inside Up tran­si­tion into a M30 Bull Engulf as visu­al­ized. I should have giv­en it the room to extend over IB. But when I saw a M15 drag­on­fly doji albeit sure­ly a pos­si­ble con­tin­u­a­tion pat­tern at LTF sup­ply I felt the urge to cut my posi­tion. I am not too hap­py with this as price went on to extend over IB and at the time of this writ­ing would have hit 1.5R before form­ing a M5 Bear Engulf, M30 Inside Bar in E. Nev­er­the­less. I don’t often trade Gold and I feel I did well on tak­ing the trade (as per hypo 1 nev­er­the­less) and stick­ing with it for a while. 

How well did I man­age my phys­i­cal, emo­tion­al and cog­ni­tive states?

• I did well here

What did I learn today?

• When tak­ing a trade based on a hypoth­e­sis, stay in tune with real-time price action behav­iour. Let the hypoth­e­sis rough­ly guide your sen­ti­ment (with­out mar­ry­ing it) and use devel­op­ing price action to read the cur­rent page (as you will) as you visu­al­ize what the next page might hold. If the devel­op­ment holds into the next page, stay with the trade until proven oth­er­wise (or your prof­it tar­get gets hit). 

What’s one thing I need to do more often?

• Take the trade based on my plan.

What’s one thing I need to do less often?

• Don’t fear los­ing gains. If the trade is worth tak­ing, it is worth the 1R risk. If it’s worth the 1R risk there is no shame in get­ting stopped out. Let exit rules guide your decisions.

Under the cir­cum­stances, did I per­form at my best?

• I did okay

For my trade plan(s) on this par­tic­u­lar day, go here:

Pre­mar­ket Prep Gold 01122021

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