How did I trade today? 20210302

Sum­ma­ry: Not gun shy. Not trig­ger-hap­py. Just trad­ing my edge when it lets me. 

#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 trade the main fund

Good Pre-mar­ket routines

Good Ses­sion PECS

Good Trade selection

Good 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

• GBPNZD
  • IB: trad­ed below ADR 0.5 HIgh
  • C: Closed as Bear Engulf extend­ing below IB and reject­ing value
  • D: Short 1.92010 SL 1.92310 TP 1.91588
    • Closed at 0.8R want­i­ng to bank some profits/buffer
    • Since I had a trade open in gold as well I felt a bit more pres­sure. Will dis­cuss this later.
    • Closed at 0.9 after extend­ing to 1.2R above M30 VWAP in R extend­ing a lit­tle over 1x IB
  • E: Closed mak­ing LLs trade would have net­ted almost 2.5R
  • F: No LLs made
  • G: Made slight LL and closed as a Bear Engulf leav­ing a tiny buy­ing tail
  • H: Trad­ed higher

• GOLD
  • IB: Trad­ed higher
  • C: Extend­ed above IB tak­ing out LTF supply
    • Hypo 1 — mean rever­sion, near­by demand, large imbal­ance open sen­ti­ment, IB exten­sion Up tak­ing out LTF supply
    • Long 1724.211 SL 1719.686 TP 1733.210
    • Closed as a near-doji with long sell­ing wick, M15 Bear Engulf (on the hour) — not a good sign. Due to open sen­ti­ment and IB exten­sion up I am giv­ing it some time.
  • D: Closed at scratch at the same time I closed GBPNZD for prof­it even though I saw M15 look­ing to take out the bear engulf­ing an cur­rent­ly we are trad­ing above my entry in slight prof­it. Still hap­py with my deci­sion as I banked some prof­its start­ing the new month full trad­ing my main account. 
    • Closed as a bull engulf with longer sell­ing wick above IB
  • E: Made HHs 
  • F: Made HHs
  • G: Made HHs, trade would have reached 2R
  • H: Closed as bear­ish candle

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 2 — Val­ue Rejec­tion Down
  • Nar­ra­tive: Due to the large sup­ply over­head plus D1 c‑sup we could see a rejec­tion down
  • Pre­ferred: con­fi­dent close below VAL with IB exten­sion down, sus­tained auction.
  • Con: mas­sive move premarket
  • 100% cor­rect
  • Price had moved with­in val­ue just before open and pro­ceed­ed to con­sol­i­date dur­ing IB below ADR 0.5 High and VAL before extend­ing down in C clos­ing below IB reject­ing value. 

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
  • Nar­ra­tive: Due to open sen­ti­ment and demand lev­els we could see a mean rever­sion although risky due to larg­er time­frame sentiment
  • Pre­ferred: Bull­ish Price action, IB exten­sion up
  • Con: Larg­er time­frame bear­ish sentiment
  • 100% cor­rect
  • IB trad­ed high­er with C extend­ing but then clos­ing back into IB again pos­si­bly react­ing off LTF sup­plies. Then D form­ing a Bull Engulf and mak­ing HHs through G.

Process

How well did I fol­low my process?

• How accu­rate was my assess­ment of mar­ket con­text? Was I aligned with mar­ket narrative?
  • GBPNZD: I did well here. Due to D1 Phase 1 / 3 there are a lot of con­tra­dict­ing moves and we are mak­ing big swings only to return. So my hypothe­ses were plausible. 
  • Gold: I did well here. I assessed due to large imbal­ance at the open plus near­by demand we could see a mean rever­sion even though larg­er sen­ti­men is still bear­ish. It was a bit risky but it worked out. 
• Was it a good trade (if any)
  • GBPNZD: In hind­sight I could have per­haps entered ear­li­er on the M15 break down from con­sol­i­da­tion but hey “hind­sight is 20/20” as they say.  I want­ed M30 to con­firm the rejection. 
  • Gold: The trade was good but I got a bit anx­ious hav­ing two posi­tions on and with M30 hav­ing closed back into IB and M15 Bear Engulf I got a bit anx­ious. But I’ve seen this before where near­by SD lev­els prove to be reac­tive and push back form­ing rever­sal pat­terns and the mar­ket still going the ‘right’ way.
• What could I have done better?
  • GBPNZD: I think I did well today in terms of the entry. I did some­what mange the trade poor­ly by tak­ing prof­its too ear­ly as the trade would have gone to 2.5R. Being the 2nd day of the month I feel fine with tak­ing some prof­its. Fur­ther­more, M30 VWAP was in the way as well as some demand. I tried wait­ing for a M15 close but then I would have not scratched on Gold as that one pulled back a lit­tle (I closed both GBPNZD and Gold at the same time using FX synergy).
  • Gold: I wait­ed for a 3 TPO exten­sion before get­ting in on an IB break which was good. Cut­ting off the trade at break even was more emo­tion­al than any­thing else. I could have had two good trades but hey. Live and learn. 
• How did I feel before, dur­ing, and after the trade?
  • GBPNZD: I felt fine. I saw the trade work­ing to go in my favor so wasn’t too wor­ried. The thought of both trades not work­ing out went by but then I remind­ed myself that this is part of trad­ing. My job here is to fol­low the rules as best as I can with no con­trol over out­come whatsoever. 
  • Gold: I felt a bit anx­ious dur­ing the trade as ear­li­er described. I feel good after­wards that I was nice­ly aligned with the mar­ket. PLUS I act­ed on it. PLUS I trad­ed my main account. At this moment I could not have asked for more. Step by step get­ting better. 

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

• I did well for the most part. Although when gold closed in C with a large sell­ing wick return­ing to IB (coin­cid­ing with a M15 Bear ENgulf on the hour) I did get a bit anx­ious. I gath­ered that due to the over­head LTF sup­plies (as well has H1 VWAP in DT) we could see some push­back caus­ing this sell­ing wick. So I decid­ed to stick with the trade a bit longer and luck­i­ly saw the trade retrace at the same time GBPNZD was mak­ing its move into prof­it. I thought to myself: You have proven that you can trade the main account with­out hes­i­ta­tion. You have proven that you can open a new trade on anoth­er asset while still fol­low­ing the first trade. Don’t mess it up by break­ing even on both of them. So when gold hit my entry lev­el and GBPNZD neared 1R I decid­ed to take it off. I did try to wait for a M15 close but decid­ed to just go for it. 
• I real­ly want­ed two things 1) break the thoughts I was hav­ing if I could pull the trig­ger (suc­ceed­ed here) 2) bank some prof­its to start the week with. 

What did I learn today?

• I learned that I can trade my main account as well as open TWO trades at the same time on it based off my hypos and devel­op­ing price action I felt good about the trades I took. This then took away much of the jumpi­ness one could some­times get. 

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

• Trust my plan. Trust my hypos. Trust my skills in ‘read­ing the mar­ket’. Sure you make mis­takes from time to time. But over­all I get more right than wrong. 

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

• Wor­ry about one sin­gle trade. 

Under the cir­cum­stances, did I per­form at my best?

• I did fair­ly well I should say. 

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

Pre­mar­ket Prep GBPNZD 20210302

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Pre­mar­ket Prep Gold 20210302

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