How did I trade today? 02022021

02 Feb How did I trade today? 02022021

Sum­ma­ry: No trades. Still a bit of a muppet. 

Account (P&L): FLAT

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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: 

• Only take trades accord­ing to a hypo unless mul­ti­ple con­di­tions are met

Good Pre-mar­ket routines

Good Ses­sion PECS

Bad 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): 3

Sum­ma­ry

• GOLD
  • IB: B closed as a Bull Engulf, no mean rever­sion cri­te­ria met
  • C: M30 closed with­in IB as an Inside Bar extend­ing 2 TPOs above IB with a slight­ly longer sell­ing wick
  • D: Hypo 1: Buy Stop 1847.860, SL 1844.626, TP 1854.328 at new­ly formed M30 Bull Engulf.
    • I took it off due to inde­ci­sive price action on M15 plus mean rever­sion con­di­tions not hav­ing been met yet and H4 demand being ‘old’.
    • D closed as a Ral­ly with longer buy­ing wick, H1 Drag­on­fly doji (pos­si­ble Base at new­ly formed H1 demand. 
  • E: Trade would have tra­versed to 1.6R (although I would have tak­en 1R due to near­by M30 VWAP (+H4 VWAP in R) in DT and time still being weird
    • Closed as a Bear Engulf with sell­ing wick (no exten­sion down form­ing a Neu­tral Day)
  • F: Closed as Bull­ish Inside Bar and H1 Bear Engulf with long slight­ly longer sell­ing wick
  • G: Closed as a consolidation
  • H: Extend­ed down from IB form­ing a Neu­tral Day tra­vers­ing 1xIB below.

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 — Mean Reversion
  • Pre­ferred: A move fur­ther down to W1 C‑dem fol­lowed by a failed auc­tion or if with­in IB strong bull­ish rever­sal pat­tern, exten­sion up with sus­tained auc­tion. Although ADR exhaus­tion is right there so be cau­tious. Mon­i­tor for val­ue acceptance.
  • 70%
  • There was no move down ful­fill­ing more of a mean rever­sion cri­te­ria. There was no sus­tained auc­tion either. Instead a failed auc­tion and Bear Engulf but no IB exten­sion down form­ing a Neu­tral Day. 
• EDIT: after writ­ing the ini­tial report I now wit­ness an exten­sion down from IB and it seems it’s a bit of a mix­ture of Hypo 2 and 3. Bot­tom line. I should have giv­en more weight to the medi­um time frame sen­ti­ment and went for short oppor­tu­ni­ties only. I changed my mup­pet meter to 3 as I feel I did not do well enough today. Which is kin­da weird as I was focused on short being the best prob­a­ble out­come and long would have only been good if mean rever­sion con­di­tions had been met. 

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

• I did not do too well today. The trade I was think­ing of ini­tial­ly tak­ing would have been against medi­um time­frame sen­ti­ment and mean rever­sion con­di­tions hadn’t been met yet. The trade would have not been the best as imme­di­ate­ly after there was a M30 Bear Engulf. Of course there was a H4 demand there but test­ed mul­ti­ple times and less reli­able as it was an old demand. The M30 Bear Engulf as an entry wouldn’t have been good either due to SL place­ment. A retest of new­ly formed M15 Bear Engulf would have been best. Although hind­sight is 20/20 as they say. 

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

• I felt okay

How well did I fol­low my process?

• Trade selec­tion
  • I had put in a buy stop order and with an exten­sion over IB dur­ing C I didn’t expect it to get hit. When M15 price kin­da fal­tered I took it off as I did not expect a fol­low-through to the move. A fol­low-through kin­da did come but was imme­di­ate­ly smashed back down. 
  • Actu­al oppor­tu­ni­ty would have been a retest of new­ly formed M15 Bear Engulf accord­ing to hypo 2 or 3.
• Trade Siz­ing & SL placement
  • SL place­ment would have been good for both opps. 
• Trade Exe­cu­tion & Mgmt
  • I would have tak­en 1R prof­it (which would have hit eas­i­ly as the trade reached 1.6R) due to the nature of the mar­ket con­di­tions these days. ALso M30/H4 VWAP in the way to a high­er prof­it target. 
  • The actu­al oppor­tu­ni­ty would have hit 2R dur­ing H. Time-based this would have been 2R as well. I took this into my playbook.

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

• I did well here

What did I learn today?

• I don’t need to be tak­ing trades. I kin­da came into the mar­ket think­ing to get a good trade in if I saw one. I feel I kin­da tried forc­ing it. Even though it would have worked out I feel it wasn’t a good enough oppor­tu­ni­ty and I would have just got­ten lucky. 

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

• Focus on con­di­tions get­ting met. When­ev­er I am think­ing if the trade is right it is obvi­ous­ly wrong. When­ev­er it is right I know it is right. 

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

• Hav­ing expec­ta­tions. The mar­ket doesn’t owe me any­thing. I am here to fig­ure out what the mar­ket is doing and if that fits my cri­te­ria I can enter on a trade. 

Under the cir­cum­stances, did I per­form at my best?

• I did okay here. As I ini­tial­ly had put in an order and then took it off due to the real­iza­tion I shouldn’t be in. 

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

Pre­mar­ket Prep Gold 02022021

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