How did I trade today? 20210326

Sum­ma­ry: Easy to fool your­self when you are mak­ing mon­ey. Process is king. 

#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
  • Done 
• Focus on time-based exits
  • Failed this one
• Don’t look at M5 chart unless with­in the last half hour of trad­ing window
  • I did look at the M5 but it was after I had closed the trade

Good Pre-mar­ket routines

Good Ses­sion PECS

Fair Trade selection

Fair 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

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Summary

• GBPNZD
  • IB: Trad­ed higher
  • C: Extend­ed but closed with­in IB with no rever­sal pat­tern (yet)
  • D: Closed as a Bear Engulf with a weak sell­ing tail
  • E: Short through sell lim­it order at 1.97180 SL 1.97430 TP 1.96680 although I will take 1R if need­ed. Price pulled back a bit and trig­gered it.
    • Rea­sons: hypo 2, failed auc­tion, weak sell­ing tail not the best, TPO D clos­ing as a bear engulf, Fri­day profit-taking
    • Mon­i­tor­ing for an exten­sion to the down­side form­ing a Neu­tral Day.
    • M15 bull engulf formed
    • Closed as a M30 spin­ning top with longer sell­ing wick / M15 con­sol­i­da­tion, giv­ing it anoth­er TPO to try and extend below IB
  • F: Test­ed IB low, 1 TPO below pre­vi­ous low, LTF sup­ply still intact
    • On 2nd retest of IB low I was on alert and wait­ed for sup­ply to get tak­en out. When price start­ed pop­ping slight­ly high­er after reach­ing LTF demand low I gath­ered the M15 con­sol­i­da­tion might hold for anoth­er peri­od and pock­et­ed some prof­its 0.4R.
    • M15 closed as a con­sol­i­da­tion (above LTF demand) with long buy­ing wick. I will mon­i­tor the remain­der of the ses­sion for any improve­ments I can learn from. 
    • F closed as a M30 Three Inside Up, M15 broke up from consolidation
  • G: Closed as a bear engulf
  • H: closed as an Inside Bar, H4 inside bar with long sell­ing wick

• GOLD
  • IB: Trad­ed low­er although with buy­ing wick
  • C: Extend­ed above IB but then closed as a long-wicked doji
  • D: closed as con­sol­i­da­tion with­in IB
  • E: Closed trad­ing slight­ly low­er but still with­in IB
  • F: Shot up and is test­ing val­ue, M15 44 pip bull engulf is crazy
    • Closed at VAL with­out accept­ing, price extend­ed 1xIB
  • G: Closed as a bear­ish inside bar
  • H: Closed as a Three Inside Down, H4 Bear­ish Inside bar with sell­ing wick

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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 — Swing Rever­sal (uncon­firmed swing) / Val­ue Acceptance
  • Nar­ra­tive: Price hit­ting MN sup­ply lev­el, Fri­day prof­it-tak­ing, D1 supply
  • Pre­ferred: Strong bear­ish price action (although prob­a­bly not as strong, or price can be slow due to FPT). IB exten­sion down.
  • Con: Lots of demand with­in value
  • 80% cor­rect
  • Instead of an IB exten­sion down there was an exten­sion up in TPOs C and D before D closed as a Bear Engulf fail­ing auc­tion leav­ing behind a weak sell­ing tail.

How accu­rate was my assess­ment of mar­ket con­text? What were the cir­cum­stances of the devel­op­ing nar­ra­tive? How did they devel­op accord­ing to DTTZ?

I did well to wait for for more infor­ma­tion in D. C had extend­ed above IB but with price slow­ing down on H4 and poten­tial­ly revers­ing a move upwards was not going to be a good one. Also after the mod­er­ate imbal­ance at the open price tra­versed high­er to mean rever­sion dis­tance to val­ue edge. When D closed as a bear engulf I went short. 

What was the play of the day?

A mean rever­sion play at MN C‑sup, with­in D1 sup­ply, after a failed auc­tion there was a bear engulf­ing although a neu­tral day was not formed dur­ing my trad­ing window.

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

I was right on my 2nd Hypo. I should not have called it a swing rever­sal, rather a mean rever­sion trade. The rea­son it wasn’t my first was because of the mod­er­ate imbal­ance at the open and large LTF demand at VAH. In hind­sight I guess I could have giv­en more weight to the sup­ply, as well as trad­ing on a Fri­day. In these mod­er­ate to large imbal­ance days one of the fac­tors I will con­sid­er from this day forth is the fact that price can eas­i­ly tra­verse to mean rever­sion dis­tance before revers­ing. Les­son learned. 

Was there an oppor­tu­ni­ty and did I take it?

I did take an entry short based off D TPO clos­ing as a bear engulf fail­ing auc­tion with­in a D1 sup­ply near a MN supply.

 

DTTZ: Rever­sal to Franky Fakeout

Entry: Sell Lim­it Order 3 pips below new­ly formed con­ter­mi­nous and DPOC. Order got trig­gered on a slight pull­back. Did well here. 

Prof­it Mar­gin (ADR or con­ges­tion): price had only tra­versed 38 pips leav­ing slight­ly more than 50 pips on the range which could have been enough. There was no imme­di­ate H4 demand under­neath although a larg­er LTF demand was present at VAH which would have giv­en a 1R at best. So not the best prof­it tar­get. How­ev­er, with no H4 demand under­neath I hypoth­e­sized a pos­si­ble return to val­ue edge which gave a 2R prof­it target.

What would a price action exit rule have done?

A price action based exit would have net­ted ‑0.3R

How was SL place­ment and Sizing?

SL place­ment was good as it was locat­ed above the for­ma­tion. Although I had not account­ed for the spread in my SL so I moved it up slight­ly to account for this. This altered my siz­ing, not too bad as it was still acceptable. 

What would time-based have done?

It would have scratched the trade for 0R

What could I have done better?

I want to say that I did well to pock­et the 0.4R when I did. How­ev­er this was not rule-based. This was me observ­ing a fail­ure to break LTF demand and price tak­ing a long time before actu­al­ly doing so. Thus on the next retest of LTF demand I wait­ed and when price start­ed ‘pop­ping’ a few pips above I decid­ed it was enough and cut the trade.

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

I felt excep­tion­al­ly calm to begin with. Then when price reversed I got a lit­tle jumpy but noth­ing too bad. I kept calm accept­ing the 1R loss if it would come. Although I kept telling myself that it wasn’t like­ly to hit a full stop as SL place­ment was good and price wasn’t stay­ing with­in new­ly formed sup­ply much. It was most­ly trad­ing below coin­cid­ing with DPOC. 

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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: Larg­er time­frame bear­ish sen­ti­ment, open sen­ti­ment, arrival at D1 base demand
  • Pre­ferred: Strong bear­ish price action with IB exten­sion down, sus­tained auction
  • Con: trad­ing right into demand
  • 80% cor­rect
  • Price slight­ly extend­ed above IB dur­ing C after which it closed with­in IB. Price con­tin­ued to trade with­in IB until a big bull engulf was formed in F clos­ing at VAL not accept­ing it. G formed a Bear­ish Inside Bar and then con­tin­ued down.

How accu­rate was my assess­ment of mar­ket con­text? What were the cir­cum­stances of the devel­op­ing nar­ra­tive? How did they devel­op accord­ing to DTTZ?

I did fair­ly well even though I did not men­tion a poten­tial failed auc­tion. They say Gold is a beast and we def­i­nite­ly saw that as price made a strong move and then an even stronger coun­ter­move. I am gain­ing more and more con­for­ma­tion of the DTTZs and how they play out. This is some­thing I will reaf­firm in my trad­ing rules. 

What was the play of the day?

Return to Val­ue play. Price test­ed VAL (with­out accept­ing) before form­ing a Bear­ish Inside Bar and reversed. 

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

I was right.

Was there an oppor­tu­ni­ty and did I take it?

There was an oppor­tu­ni­ty but I did not take it as price had just made a strong move up before revers­ing. I saw LTF fal­ter­ing and revers­ing but as the ‘best’ entry was gone I decid­ed to let it go as this would be more out of FOMO then I actu­al­ly stalked the oppor­tu­ni­ty prop­er­ly, visu­al­ized, then act­ed. THAT IS ONE HARD RULE I CANNOT BREAK.

What would a price action exit rule have done?

Entry short off the M30 Bear­ish Inside Bar the exit would have coin­cid­ed with a time-based exit and net­ted 0.5R. Entry off the M15 Three Inside Down would have net­ted 0.8R.

How was SL place­ment and Sizing?

Based on the M30 Bear­ish Inside Bar not the best as it would have cut through the wick on the pre­vi­ous can­dle. Entry off the M15 Three Inside Down would have had great SL place­ment as it would have been above the formation. 

What would time-based have done?

0.5R. Over­lap noise would have net­ted 1.5R on the close. Entry off M15 would have net­ted 0.8R and 1.8 at the close of the over­lap noise.

What could I have done better?

I could have actu­al­ly tak­en the trade as it was some­thing that I was just going through the lec­tures again. Specif­i­cal­ly on a return to val­ue play. Ah well, next time. 

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 actu­al­ly. Cog­ni­tive­ly speak­ing I was pret­ty good. Same with emotions. 

What did I learn today?

My ego would like to think there was a good rea­son to cut the trade off when I did. I believe this is a slip­pery slope as my nature is to grasshop­per. I believe act­ing on cold hard trad­ing rules is what is sus­tain­able and con­sis­tent­ly prof­itable. Although, I do need to give myself some space to be intu­itive in the mar­kets. I did not just start out trad­ing. Hav­ing said that. I have a good process in place to 1) catch myself if I do it too often 2) the willpow­er and hon­esty to actu­al­ly address and do some­thing about it. 

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

Keep fol­low­ing my process. 

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

Wor­ry about mak­ing mis­takes. The mis­takes are what teach us the most. 

Under the cir­cum­stances, did I per­form at my best?

I did okay today. 

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

Pre­mar­ket Prep GBPNZD 20210326

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Pre­mar­ket Prep Gold 20210326

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