How did I trade today? 20210217

Sum­ma­ry: It’s okay to be Emotional

#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: 

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

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 closed as a slight bear engulf, B closed low­er clos­ing with­in LTF demand in a poten­tial move to con­tin­ue low­er cre­at­ing a ⅔ ASR IB range
    • There could be a pos­si­ble nar­ra­tive for a D1 Base being build today which would mean a mean rever­sion is more prob­a­ble before we estab­lish val­ue around these lev­els and if then the next day would open above val­ue we could see that RBR com­plet­ed. So might have mis­cal­cu­lat­ed my hypos but will see what plays out.
  • C: Closed extend­ing below IB
  • D: M5 Bull Engulf at M30 QLo, wait­ing for a M15 Bull Engulf, not much of a buy­ing tail although okay enough
    • M15 bull engulf close put in a buy lim­it order at 1.92740 to get a bet­ter SL placement. 
    • Price moved high­er so took the buy lim­it order off. Wait­ing for TPO close although with TPO retrac­ing half of IB range I am hes­i­tant to have a good R/R going in on a close. And if we are going to form a D1 base with long buy­ing wick it would be around these lev­els. So it feels like buy­ing the top at the moment. I might be proven wrong. 
    • Closed as a Bull Engulf (fail­ing auc­tion) that retraced more than half of IB range and thus makes for a bad SL place­ment. If there is a retrace­ment to new­ly formed C‑line I might con­sid­er going long
  • E: M15 close as Bear­ish Inside Bar revers­ing at LTF QHi. Closed as an Inside Bar with small buy­ing wick / M15 Ham­mer. Didn’t feel con­fi­dent for a 2nd chance entry as price slowed down plus price trad­ing mid LTF swing so I am let­ting the trade go. 
    • Hit­ting the gym
  • F: Closed as a doji
  • G: Con­sol­i­da­tion continued
  • H: Con­sol­i­da­tion continued

Sum­ma­ry

• GOLD
  • IB: A made a drop and B closed as a poten­tial base with longer sell­ing wick
  • C: Closed as a weak bear engulf
  • D: Closed low­er with long buy­ing wick
  • E: low­er with long sell­ing wick
  • F: Big Bull Engulf
  • G: Base
  • H: Ral­ly not extend­ing over IB
  • I: start­ed extending

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?
• Hypo 1 — Return to Value
  • Nar­ra­tive: Larg­er time­frame bull­ish sen­ti­ment, large imbal­ance at the open
  • Pre­ferred: Pull­back to LTF demand above VAH before con­tin­u­ing high­er, bull­ish price action, sus­tained auc­tion pos­si­ble exhaust­ing ADR
  • Con: Trad­ing right into D1 sup­ply we could see a low/medium ini­tia­tive activ­i­ty day
  • 80% cor­rect
  • Although the trad­ing idea was cor­rect it start­ed with a failed auc­tion with no fol­low-through to the move. 

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 — Mean Reversion
  • Nar­ra­tive: Open sen­ti­ment could be grounds for a pull­back before any continuation. 
  • Pre­ferred: Bull­ish Price Action per­haps with a failed auc­tion combination
  • Con: Larg­er time­frame sentiment
  • 100% cor­rect 
  • This was anoth­er oppor­tu­ni­ty to have trad­ed on a LTF entry. 

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

• I did well here. I stuck to the larg­er time­frame nar­ra­tive and I let a seem­ing­ly momen­tum move down on C go and wait­ed for a pos­si­ble rever­sal fail­ing auc­tion. Due to the open sen­ti­ment I did see a pos­si­bil­i­ty for a mean rever­sion so I want­ed to be slight­ly more care­ful. I saw M5 revers­ing and wait­ed for a tran­si­tion to M15 Bull Engulf which did come. I placed a buy lim­it order expect­ing some kind of slight pull­back which nev­er came. By the time M30 Bull Engulf was formed I did not feel like enter­ing the trade as price had slowed down and the engulf­ing had retraced quite a bit with­in IB. 

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

• I did not take any trades. I felt good let­ting the trade go as I felt like I was forc­ing a nar­ra­tive when price action felt ‘off’. It turns out in my trad­ing win­dow I was cor­rect but price might pos­si­bly shoot high­er lat­er on. 

How well did I fol­low my process?

• Trade selec­tion
  • No trades taken 
• Entry Method
  • No trades taken
• Trade Siz­ing & SL placement
  • No trades taken
• Trade Exe­cu­tion & Mgmt
  • No trades taken

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

• I did well here. Anoth­er fac­tor that has added to this is the pod­cast with Tom Can­field that I have lis­tened to a few times now. The main take-away for me is to lis­ten to myself. It is so nice to hear more traders ‘com­ing out’ and say­ing that yes WE ARE emo­tion­al crea­tures and it is okay. Emo­tions are a huge part of who you are and of course you take those into the mar­ket. BUT, you need some­thing to con­trol those emo­tions with and be able to focus on your edge. For me, it is a sys­tem­at­ic approach to my trad­ing. Basi­cal­ly, this is the loca­tion. This is what I want to see. Enter. This is what I want to keep see­ing. If not? Get out. Over­sim­pli­fi­ca­tion of what it is that I do and have learned from Dee. But it does boil down to that. For me being emo­tion­al in life I bring that to the mar­kets although not to my trad­ing. I enjoy trad­ing and can’t imag­ine doing any­thing else. There are huge emo­tions linked to that. But when it comes to my trad­ing rules…. It is clear cut, no weird half-ass­ing around… 

What did I learn today?

• I learn each day to trust my own instincts. I gain con­fi­dence through expe­ri­ence and doc­u­ment­ing the way I mea­sure the mar­kets and how well I hypoth­e­size and enter or choose not to enter the market. 

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

• Stay the course. I am in it for the long-haul. I hope you are too. 

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

• I feel I did well today

Under the cir­cum­stances, did I per­form at my best?

• Yes I did

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

Pre­mar­ket Prep GBPNZD 20210217

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Pre­mar­ket Prep Gold 20210217

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