How did I trade today? 20210319

Sum­ma­ry: Mind your IB extensions

#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 account
  • Did well here
• Focus on time-based exits
  • I did well here although on the first trade my SL got hit.
  • 2nd trade I ini­ti­at­ed in the last hour so was look­ing for LTF price action to war­rant an exit. Which did come and I got out. 
• Don’t look at M5 chart unless with­in the last hour of trad­ing window
  • I did well here

Good Pre-mar­ket routines

Good Ses­sion PECS

Fair 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): 2

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Summary

• GBPNZD
  • IB: Trad­ed higher
  • C: Extend­ed 1 TPO above IB. Closed as a Bear Engulf with slight­ly longer buy­ing wick. Not clos­ing below M30 QHi. Hes­i­tat­ing to go short as new­ly formed M30 and H1 c‑dem is still in the way and it would mean a neu­tral day if we do extend below. Anoth­er rea­son is LTF trad­ing flat around VWAP indi­cat­ing some form of bal­anc­ing. Time will tell if I am wrong. 
  • D: Pull­back to M15 Sup­ply and I went short
    • Short: 1.94069 SL 1.94319 TP 1.93547
    • Decid­ed to go short any­way as mean rever­sion cri­te­ria was met. 1 TPO exten­sion above fol­lowed by a bear engulf fail­ing auc­tion. H4 DBD with­in H4 QHi. 
    • Will wait for D to close low­er oth­er­wise look for an exit. 
    • Closed as an Inside Bar with long buy­ing wick. Def­i­nite­ly not a good sign. H1 ham­mer. M15 Bull ENgulf on the hour. Gonna stick with the trade to bat­tle the grasshop­per and focus on a time-based exit or a LTF PA exit in the last hour if my SL doesn’t get hit by then of course. Which it looks like it will. 
  • E: Trad­ed high­er and took out my SL ‑1R. Think­ing it is pos­si­ble we might see a sell­ing tail before revers­ing down. If so I will try anoth­er short. If the move seems sus­tained I will look for a poten­tial entry long although.
    • E closed high­er at IB edge, M15 invert­ed ham­mer. Wait­ing for sell­ing tail to be con­firmed at next TPO close oth­er­wise we are look­ing at a sus­tained auc­tion. Albeit low/medium ini­tia­tive activ­i­ty day. 
  • F: made a poor high. Expect­ing it to get tak­en out. And it did close mak­ing HHs. 
  • G: Closed as an invert­ed ham­mer mak­ing HHs
  • H: Closed as a Three Inside Down leav­ing a Sell­ing Tail in G and fail­ing auction. 

• GOLD
  • IB: Closed trad­ing above Value
  • C: closed extend­ing down leav­ing a long buy­ing wick and clos­ing as a slight Bull Engulf (weak)
  • D: Trad­ed and closed high­er with­in IB
  • E: Closed as an Inside bar , M15 con­sol­i­da­tion pos­si­ble DBD
  • F: M15 DBD wait­ing for a pull­back for a bet­ter entry as M15 VWAP is in the way price might see some reac­tion. If filled I’ll wait for a pos­si­ble M30 Three Out­side Down to be formed.
    • Price ran off and is near­ing new­ly formed H4 C‑dem. 
    • Closed down after extend­ing below
  • G: trad­ed slight­ly low­er return­ing to struc­ture pos­si­bly leav­ing a buy­ing tail.
    • M5 rever­sal, tran­si­tion to M15 bull engulf
    • Long 1737480 SL 1733.960 TP 1744.460
    • Wait­ing for H to take out sin­gle prints in F
  • H: Took out demand clos­ing as M5 Bear Engulf and pro­ceed­ed low­er so took of the trade at ‑0.5R. Done for the day. 
    • M15 closed as an Inside Bar with long buy­ing wick. Pos­si­bil­i­ty for price to move high­er as intended. 
    • Time-based cut off would have been ‑0.2R
    • Closed as a con­sol­i­da­tion with longer buy­ing wick, H4 Inside bar with longer sell­ing wick. 
  • I: indeed price closed as Bull Engulf and is trad­ing high­er has we speak although a poor low was formed. Price would not have tak­en out SL and at I close would have net­ted a mere 0.3R

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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 — Trend Con­tin­u­a­tion / Return to Value
  • Nar­ra­tive: D1 Bull Engulf, Larg­er time­frame bull­ish sen­ti­ment. Weak over­head supply.
  • Pre­ferred: Strong Bull­ish price action, IB exten­sion up (momen­tum) sus­tained auc­tion tak­ing out LTF supplies.
  • Con: Pos­si­ble D1 Phase 3 although could be redis­tri­b­u­tion due to D1 200MA and larg­er time­frame bull­ish sen­ti­ment. Price at H4 UKC in R.
  • 70% cor­rect
  • There was no strong bull­ish price action. In fact there was a Bear Engulf before the actu­al move. Mak­ing HHs fol­lowed by G and H com­plet­ing a THree Inside Down but leav­ing a H4 Bull Engulf with long sell­ing wick. 

How accu­rate was my assess­ment of mar­ket con­text? Was I aligned with mar­ket nar­ra­tive through my hypos? What were the cir­cum­stances of the devel­op­ing nar­ra­tive? How did they devel­op accord­ing to DTTZ?

I first hypoth­e­sized that at these lev­els with the open sen­ti­ment we could see a mean rever­sion of sorts. When C closed as a Bear Engulf I was hes­i­tant at first to go short. Espe­cial­ly, with last Wednes­day hav­ing a sim­i­lar set­up actu­al­ly mov­ing into my favor (but I grasshop­pered out) so I thought I’d give it anoth­er try. Went in short although this time C had extend­ed 1 TPO above IB but then closed as a Bear Engulf I the­o­rized a failed auc­tion and thought we could see a con­tin­u­a­tion to the move down. Sad­ly this was not the case and SL got tak­en out. 

I did well to stick with the trade along the lines of my time-based exit rule. I believe more and more that this will in the end net me a big­ger prof­it than not. 

What was the play of the day?

Trend Con­tin­u­a­tion / Return to Val­ue. Price had extend­ed 1 TPO above IB before clos­ing as a bear engulf in C. To which price then reversed again and trad­ed high­er which lead me to believe that a sell­ing tail had to be made around these mean rever­sion lev­els before tak­ing the short as IB had already extend­ed 1 TPO above IB. Which is some­thing you do not want to see when plan­ning a short. Last Wednes­day did not have this order­flow event hap­pen. Live and learn. 

Was I right on the out­come? Which Hypo played out and why was it not Hypo 1 (if any)?

It was Hypo 1 although I gave it 70% due to price actu­al­ly look­ing to set up for a mean rever­sion or rever­sal after all it just need­ed some more room to do so as indi­cat­ed by the exten­sion up and con­se­quent failed auc­tion lat­er on in the ses­sion leav­ing a sell­ing tail. Going long would have been trou­ble­some as well trad­ing straight into sup­ply. So even though Hypo 1 is what played out dur­ing my trad­ing win­dow I believe Hypo 2 is actu­al­ly the play of the day. 

Was there an oppor­tu­ni­ty and did I take it?

I took the wrong oppor­tu­ni­ty but I did take it. 

What would a price action exit rule have done?

My SL got hit

What would time-based have done?

My SL got hit

What could I have done better?

I could have the­o­rized that the exten­sion above IB indi­cat­ed for more upside and should have wait­ed for more con­flu­ence in terms of a sell­ing tail on the profile. 

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

I felt good actu­al­ly. I remem­bered the calm­ness of this par­tic­u­lar exer­cise taught to me by Dee. As a grasshop­per the first rule she gave me was to ini­ti­ate a trade and by what­ev­er means let the trade do what it does and take the trade off until my time-based exit. I remem­ber how I was calm and could be objec­tive. I noticed that in the long run the trades were good and that there was no rea­son to try and ‘man­age’ the trades. If you are aligned with the mar­ket, let the mar­ket do its thing. So this will be (it is already actu­al­ly) my main goal for next month. This month was tak­ing trades on my main account which I am doing and have no issues with (as I am trad­ing a larg­er fund). I don’t have issues because it’s just a % risk that I take. Doesn’t mat­ter the size of the account so that is a plus. I also have a bet­ter under­stand­ing of what my P/L would have been if I had enforced the time-based rule ear­li­er but this is why I have to do these things in real life. Doc­u­ment and learn from them so I can make the right adjust­ments as I go along. 

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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 — Bal­anc­ing Market
  • Nar­ra­tive: open within
  • Pre­ferred: play off near­by LTF SD and ADR levels
  • 100% cor­rect
  • Price trad­ed from with­in VAH to above it with­out an IB exten­sion and con­tin­ued to con­sol­i­date. To then return back into Val­ue in a big Three Out­side Down.

How accu­rate was my assess­ment of mar­ket con­text? Was I aligned with mar­ket nar­ra­tive through my hypos? What were the cir­cum­stances of the devel­op­ing nar­ra­tive? How did they devel­op accord­ing to DTTZ?

I did well to under­stand the nar­ra­tive. When I saw LTF price action set­ting up for a poten­tial val­ue rejec­tion fail­ure move back into val­ue I wait­ed for a M15 close as I had just lost the trade on GBPNZD. When M15 closed as a Bear Engulf I wait­ed for a pull­back to new c‑sup to go short but alas this pull­back nev­er came and price extend­ed quick­ly fur­ther below. 

What was the play of the day?

A Val­ue Rejec­tion Fail­ure play­ing off M30 QHi and near­by ADR 0.5 high. LTF price action even­tu­al­ly print­ing a bear engulf that tran­si­tioned into a M15 bear engulf with no 2nd chance entry. 

Was I right on the out­come? Which Hypo played out and why was it not Hypo 1 (if any)?

Yes I was cor­rect on the outcome.

Was there an oppor­tu­ni­ty and did I take it?

I failed to take the short as out­lined above. Then when price moved below to H4 C‑dem, based on the Day Trad­ing Time Zone I gath­ered an entry based on M5 was war­rant­ed and saw price con­sol­i­dat­ing and mov­ing high­er so I went long. Wait­ed for a tran­si­tion to M15 bull engulf which did come only to be tak­en out again so I cut the trade. Did well on the exit. Not so much on the entry as I could have wait­ed for the cor­rect DTTZ to kick in before bas­ing my entry on. Les­son learned and adjust­ed my entry rules. 

What would a price action exit rule have done?

I did take a price action exit rule which was a M5 bear engulf + tak­ing out LTF demand which is some­thing you don’t want to see when going long. How­ev­er, due to me being too ear­ly the trade was actu­al­ly wrong. I should have wait­ed longer before tak­ing my entry (if any).

What would time-based have done?

I would have lost ‑0.2R instead of ‑0.5R. Extra half hour with­in over­lap noise would have net­ted 0.3R. 

What could I have done better?

I should have wait­ed longer before tak­ing my entry (if any) at the right DTTZ.

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

I felt okay actu­al­ly. I felt good that I had tak­en the trade even after a loss. Then when I visu­al­ized what should hap­pen but then saw that it wasn’t hap­pen­ing I cut the trade with­out a flinch. 

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

I think I did well today. Cog­ni­tive­ly I did well. Been doing well late­ly as I am eat­ing bet­ter and focus­ing on a diet again. Been good the last few weeks. Emo­tion­al­ly I did well too. Even though I lost ‑1.5R I feel I am final­ly forced to real­ly grasp the con­cepts and learn. Before trad­ing the small­er account I feel I was tak­ing trades eas­i­er with­out per­haps ful­ly grasp­ing the why. Then they, more then not, would hap­pen to pan out. Now that I am more con­scious about my trades it forces me to actu­al­ly under­stand the nar­ra­tive. So that I can be even more okay with the nature of the prob­a­bil­i­ties and the extent of my own knowl­edge and the areas I still lack. Great job today. 

What did I learn today?

That I still need some tweak­ing done and that I per­haps tried to do too much too fast as is my nature. Hence the almighty Mys­tic Dee had put me on a time-based rule exit which I am going to focus on once more (already start­ed but it is real­ly hit­ting home). 

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

Stay the path and improve day by day. Tomor­row I will go over the trades of the week and review what I could have done better. 

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

Wor­ry about mak­ing trades. Good or bad they are reveal­ing. Can always learn from win­ners and losers. 

Under the cir­cum­stances, did I per­form at my best?

I did well today. 

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

Pre­mar­ket Prep GBPNZD 20210319

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Pre­mar­ket Prep Gold 20210319

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