How did I trade today? 01132021

Sum­ma­ry: Trad­ing isn’t about tak­ing trades

Account (P&L): FLAT

#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

Good Trade siz­ing or SL placement

Good Trade Exe­cu­tion & Mgmt.

Good Risk Adjust­ed Returns

Yes Dai­ly review

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

Sum­ma­ry

• GBPNZD
  • IB: A extend­ed up over VAH halt­ing at LTF sup­ply clos­ing slight­ly with­in. B moved high­er tak­ing out LTF and H4 sup­ply hit­ting W1 C‑sup with ini­tial reac­tion clos­ing high­er leav­ing behind a longer sell­ing wick (still look­ing bull­ish though)
  • C: Trad­ed high­er with no exten­sion (yet). Look­ing for some kind of rever­sal as there is a D1/W1 sup­ply overhead. 
  • D: Extend­ed clos­ing above IB at W1/D1 C‑sup near­ing ADR exhaustion
  • E: Closed mak­ing HHs leav­ing a sin­gle print in D behind. Due to the rel­a­tive short prox­im­i­ty to IB edge high and sus­tained auc­tion we might test this level. 
  • F: Closed as an Inside Bar (H1 Shoot­ing Star) retrac­ing almost to struc­ture edge low (with­out tak­ing one sin­gle print out as that was what I was visu­al­iz­ing for a con­tin­u­a­tion late sus­tained auc­tion entry). 
  • G: Closed as a weak failed auction.

Sum­ma­ry

• GOLD
  • IB: M30 DBD pre­mar­ket, A clos­ing down as a con­tin­u­a­tion react­ing off LTF demand below VAL. B moved low­er bu closed as an Inside Bar / M15 Bull Engulf
  • C: Closed as con­tin­u­a­tion of M30 DBD extend­ing 1xIB range below IB
  • D: Closed as big Inside Bar retrac­ing more than 50%
  • E: Closed as a consolidation
  • F: Closed as con­sol­i­da­tion with longer sell­ing wick
  • G: Con­tin­u­a­tion on consolidation.

Hypos — GBPNZD

• 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?
• Hypos
  • 2 — Trend Con­tin­u­a­tion / Val­ue Rejec­tion Up
    • Pre­ferred: Strong Bull­ish price action (as we are trad­ing direct­ly into sup­ply), IB exten­sion up and sus­tained auc­tion tak­ing out H4 supply.
    • 100%
  • 1 & 4 — Bal­anced Mar­ket + Swing Reversal
    • 1 — Bal­anc­ing Market
      • Play off near­by LTF SD and ADR levels.
    • 4 — Pre­ferred: IB exten­sion up with price action rever­sal fail­ing auc­tion and quick follow-through
    • 100%
    • Ini­tial­ly dur­ing IB we had Hypo 2 play out which then trans­gressed into Hypo 1 / 4 which turned out to be about the same hypoth­e­sis. We did have a sus­tained auc­tion up but then price slowed down and formed a M30 Inside Bar dur­ing F and we took out sin­gle prints in D dur­ing G. At the time of writ­ing G has not closed yet so Hypo 4 is not entire­ly con­firmed as of yet. Will check back on that later. 

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 2 — Val­ue Rejec­tion Down
  • Pre­ferred: IB exten­sion down tak­ing out LTF and H4 demand, sus­tained auction.
  • 90%
  • We extend­ed below IB about 1x and then tran­si­tioned into a consolidation.

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

• I did real­ly well here. Even though I was stalk­ing a rever­sal as per Hypo 4 there was not enough of a TPO struc­ture built to make me feel con­fi­dent going against the move. With how price sus­tained auc­tion I visu­al­ized a late-sus­tained auc­tion entry move I have seen mul­ti­ple times before and thought to enter long. How­ev­er, with price hav­ing slowed down and not quite reach­ing TPO struc­ture low before closed the TPO fair­ly bear­ish I decid­ed to let the trade idea go and sim­ply observe as this is not an entry I have exe­cut­ed on many times. I believe only once. 
• For a late-sus­tained auc­tion entry direct into a sup­ply or demand zone: I need faster paced price action test­ing TPO struc­ture low (after a sus­tained auc­tion) before clos­ing as a Base. Due to a high­er time frame sup­ply this was not fea­si­ble today and the rever­sal was ‘con­firmed’ through a weak failed auction. 

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

• No trades tak­en but felt great through­out the session. 

How well did I fol­low my process?

• Trade selec­tion
  • No trades tak­en. If I had gone long as per hypo 2 I would have been trad­ing right into over­head demand which would have been very risky. 
• Trade Siz­ing & SL placement
  • SL place­ment would have been okay as it would have been a momen­tum trade although com­ing from with­in val­ue this was yet anoth­er rea­son to NOT take the trade. 
• Trade Exe­cu­tion & Mgmt
  • If I had tak­en the trade TPO F close would have tak­en me out at very minor prof­it after only hav­ing tra­versed 1R perhaps.

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

• Did real­ly well here stay­ing objec­tive stalk­ing poten­tial oppor­tu­ni­ties engag­ing for price action to con­firm a pos­si­ble trad­ing idea and not forc­ing my views onto the market. 

What did I learn today?

• Our job is to sit here and find align­ment with the mar­ket. When an oppor­tu­ni­ty aris­es that fits our risk pro­file (based on a sta­tis­ti­cal­ly proven set­up) we exe­cute a trade. Noth­ing more. Noth­ing less.

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

• Stay obser­vant and fol­low price 

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

• Feel I need to trade. Which… I am get­ting very good at. Kudos to me. 

Under the cir­cum­stances, did I per­form at my best?

• I did very well today. Done and hit­ting the gym!

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

Pre­mar­ket Prep GBPNZD 01132021

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Pre­mar­ket Prep Gold 01132021

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