How did I trade today? 20210323

Sum­ma­ry: Prof­it on a bad trade is prob­a­bly the worst to estab­lish bad habits. 

#fin­twit #order­flow #day­trad­ing #dai­lyre­port­card #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
• Focus on time-based exits
• Don’t look at M5 chart unless with­in the last half hour of trad­ing window

Good Pre-mar­ket routines

Good Ses­sion PECS

Bad Trade selection

Good Trade siz­ing or SL placement

Bad Trade Exe­cu­tion & Mgmt.

Good Risk Adjust­ed Returns

Yes Dai­ly review

Mup­pet meter (1 being best — 5 being worst): 3

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Summary

• GBPNZD
  • IB: Trad­ed higher
  • C: Closed as a Bear Engulf extend­ing below IB
  • D: Short: 1.95430 SL 1.95690 TP 1.94940 (2R)
    • Rea­sons: hypo 2 large imbal­ance at the open near­by W1 supply.
    • M15 closed as a doji, could go either way, price did make LLs but if price revers­es it could just be a buy­ing tail
    • Closed mak­ing LLs although no real momen­tum behind the move
  • E: Closed posi­tion at 0.4R as price is going very slow and due to price hav­ing tak­en out sup­ply as well as lots of LTF demand under­neath as well as M30 VWAP in UT I decid­ed to pock­et some prof­its. Not hap­py with this though as this is prob­a­bly just a low/medium ini­tia­tive day. I have had a few trades hit SL and I just want­ed to get a win and did not fol­low my exit rule. Will fol­low the trade to see what it would have done if I hadn’t tak­en the trade off. I got a bit jumpy due to the sup­ply that got tak­en out as well as the ADR got exhaust­ed dur­ing Asia as well as hit­ting a Month­ly Base sup­ply lev­el (although too large of a time­frame prob­a­bly to war­rant an imme­di­ate con­tin­u­a­tion). Although I believe it is more like­ly that this will con­tin­ue down but I still took the trade off. 
    • M15 closed as a Bull Engulf at IB low, slight­ly within
    • Closed as con­sol­i­da­tion with longer sell­ing wick, M15 closed pulling back to new­ly formed c‑dem but not with­in demand.
  • F: Closed with­in IB leav­ing a buy­ing wick and tail after react­ing off M30 VWAP in UT. 6 TPO Tail needs to be confirmed. 
  • G: Tail con­firmed, price closed high­er with­in IB
  • H: Closed as an Inside Bar no rota­tion through IB (yet), H4 equal-long wicked doji (neu­tral)

• GOLD
  • IB: IB closed as a Bear Engulf in B
  • C: Closed as a bull­ish inside bar
  • D: closed trad­ing high­er with­in IB
  • E: Closed as a Bear Engulf
    • Too close to VAH, LTF sup­ply, mid M30 swing and mar­ket in range, although at H4 QHi
  • F: Trad­ed low­er but with­out exten­sion, closed as an Inside Bar. 
  • G: Extend­ed over IB but closed with­in again leav­ing a long sell­ing wick
  • H: closed above IB, H4 clos­ing high­er but still below H4 QHi.

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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 2 — Mean Reversion
  • Nar­ra­tive: Open sen­ti­ment, W1 supply
  • Pre­ferred: Strong Bear­ish price action with IB exten­sion down.
  • Con: Larg­er time frame bull­ish sen­ti­ment. Trend H4,D1 up. 
  • 90% cor­rect
  • There was no sus­tained auc­tion down. Price extend­ed below dur­ing C with a slight con­tin­u­a­tion in D to then con­sol­i­date and reverse after react­ing off M30 VWAP in UT.

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 was a bit con­fused due to Asia exhaust­ing ADR. Because Asia had gone up and tak­en out W1 sup­ply cre­at­ing a huge imbal­ance at Lon­don open I thought it would be more prob­a­ble for a mean rever­sion. Which kin­da came but only to fail auc­tion and con­tin­ue fur­ther up. 

What was the play of the day?

A slight mean rever­sion that turned into a failed auc­tion to then con­tin­ue the trend. 

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

I would say Hypo 2 played out first to then tran­si­tion into Hypo 1 out­side of my trad­ing window. 

Was there an oppor­tu­ni­ty and did I take it?

I did take an oppor­tu­ni­ty based on hypo 2 mean rever­sion and pock­et­ed 0.4R. 

What would a price action exit rule have done?

A M15 bull Engulf would have have scratched the trade at about 0R.

How was SL place­ment and Sizing?

SL place­ment wasn’t the best due to IB being some­what wide (over 50 pips). But Due to expect­ing a momen­tum trade (which nev­er came) it was okay for the SL the be cut­ting through the formation. 

What would time-based have done?

Would have got­ten stopped out in G. ‑1R. 

What could I have done better?

I feel I should not have been in the trade to begin with due to price hav­ing tak­en out W1 sup­ply and hit­ting a Month­ly sup­ply base lev­el and ‘ini­tial’ larg­er time­frame bull­ish sen­ti­ment. My hypo 1 was more plau­si­ble although dur­ing my trad­ing win­dow it was a mean rever­sion that some­what played out. I got lucky break­ing my exit rules. At the time of writ­ing this K TPO has formed a Neu­tral Day and extend­ed over IB. 

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

I felt a bit that some­thing was off. I saw price fal­ter­ing and did look on M5. When I saw the pro­file strug­gling to make LLs I thought to cut it. I say strug­gling now in hind­sight. At the time I was just jonesing to take some prof­its after hav­ing mul­ti­ple stops being hit in the last few trades. If I had wait­ed for an exit rule I would have either scratched or had a SL hit again. This doesn’t take away the fact that hon­est­ly I did not have a good exit rule that I act­ed on. I act­ed out of fear of los­ing prof­its. This does tell me that I should not have been in the trade to begin with for rea­sons out­lined above. I will review on the weekend. 

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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 — Return to Value
  • Nar­ra­tive: Open sen­ti­ment, D1 narrative
  • Pre­ferred: Strong Bull­ish Price action with IB exten­sion up (momen­tum) sus­tained auc­tion. Per­haps more like­ly an IB exten­sion down with price action rever­sal at VAH fol­lowed by a failed auction. 
  • Con: Trad­ing right into D1 sup­ply, New H4 supply
  • 70% cor­rect
  • There was no real strong bull­ish price action and it looked more like my hypo 2 respon­sive activ­i­ty play­ing out. Watch­ing paint dry. But there was final­ly an exten­sion above IB in G. 

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 that there was not much of a like­li­hood for a move to hap­pen so I stayed out. 

What was the play of the day?

I don’t think I could have played any move on the day. 

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

Yes I was. 

Was there an oppor­tu­ni­ty and did I take it?

There was no real oppor­tu­ni­ty and no I did not take any. 

What would a price action exit rule have done?

N.A.

How was SL place­ment and Sizing?

N.A.

What would time-based have done?

N.A.

What could I have done better?

Did well today

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

No trades taken.

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

I did well. I was focused and most­ly unemo­tion­al. When the trade took so damn long to go in my favor I must have sub­con­scious­ly known that some­thing was up as 1) price usu­al­ly goes in my favor quite quick­ly 2) the the­sis was wrong. 

What did I learn today?

Thet the jumpi­ness I expe­ri­ence can be seen as a trig­ger to per­haps under­stand why I am uncom­fort­able in a trade. Usu­al­ly, when I take a good trade I sel­dom expe­ri­ence this. But then again in recent trades I have due to hav­ing had a few loss­es and cur­rent­ly trad­ing a big­ger account. 

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

Take trades based on my plan and build up more expe­ri­ence. I feel just now trad­ing a big­ger account forces me to be more present and even knowl­edge­able on the rea­sons for tak­ing my trades. 

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

Wor­ry about hit­ting a SL. Rules are Rules. If stop is hit then the rule is to find out if it was a good trade that just sim­ply didn’t go my way or should I have not been in the trade to begin with. 

Under the cir­cum­stances, did I per­form at my best?

I feel a did poor­ly due to tak­ing prof­its ear­ly even though it did play out well. At the time that is not the main rea­son why I took prof­its too early. 

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

Pre­mar­ket Prep GBPNZD 20210323

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Pre­mar­ket Prep Gold 20210323

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