How did I trade today? 20210408

Sum­ma­ry: Progress, not perfection

#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: 

• Min. 3 times hit­ting the gym + manda­to­ry cardio
  • To pun­ish myself for break­ing my exit rule (even though mak­ing mon­ey) I went for a dou­ble workout. 
• Only trade the main account
  • Check
• Be mind­ful of DTTZs
  • Check
• Only price-action based exit rules (or if hit time stop comes earlier)
  • FAIL
• M15/M30 entries and exits at 1st DTTZ, M5 entries and exits at 2nd DTTZ
  • Check

Good Pre-mar­ket routines

Good Ses­sion PECS

Good 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: A closed as a bear engulf, B as an Inside Bar
    • Look­ing for a poten­tial break below in C clos­ing as a DBD then per­haps a sell lim­it order in D at new­ly formed c‑sup for a 2nd chance entry
  • C: Extend­ed below, M15 Bear Engulf, pos­si­ble low/medium ini­tia­tive day
  • D: Sell Lim­it Order at 1.95600, SL 1.95853, TP 1.95103
    • Formed a poor low then popped it and took the trade off at 0.4R, now watch­ing the trade go to 1R and just took out H4 demand so will prob­a­bly see a con­tin­u­a­tion. Kin­da got wor­ried due to Gold going short as well as there is some­what of a inversed cor­re­la­tion between them. Although per­haps not today. Also if H4 demand got tak­en out it would not coin­cide with tak­ing out of LTF demand and per­haps a bounce might occur. I can make excus­es as much as I want. Fact remains. I did not fol­low my exit rule. 
    • D closed at 1R, looks like a sus­tained auc­tion, H1 marubozu can­dle close deep with­in H1 demand
  • E: M15 closed as a Bull Engulf with­in IB would need M30 to close with­in as well for a failed auc­tion. Only a 1 TPO buy­ing tail though so could just be the reac­tion off pop­ping the H4 demand.
    • Price action exit would have scratched the trade at 0R, let’s see how this devel­ops further. 
    • Closed as a Bull Engulf with­in IB at DPOC. Due to a lack of buy­ing tail I will not ini­ti­ate a long posi­tion based off the bull engulf and failed auc­tion as this might just be a reac­tion to pop­ping the H4 demand. 
  • F: Closed as an Inside Bar
  • G: Closed as a Three Inside Down not mak­ing LLs
  • H: CLosed as an Inside Bar
  • I: Closed as a slight DBD
  • J: Closed as an Inside Bar near-doji with longer sell­ing wick

• GOLD
  • IB: trad­ed high­er with B hav­ing a long sell­ing wick
  • C: M15 Three Inside Down, C closed as a drag­on­fly doji
  • D: Closed as an Evening Star extend­ing below IB although leav­ing a longer buy­ing wick
  • E: Prob­a­bly the same hap­pened with Gold as well when H4 sup­ply got pooped pre­mar­ket, the ses­sion trad­ed against the sen­ti­ment for the time-being. I will mon­i­tor for a pos­si­ble move high­er though. 
    • Closed as a slight con­tin­u­a­tion below although not extend­ing below IB so no LLs
  • F: Closed as a consolidation
  • G: Closed higher
  • H: Closed as a doji with longer sell­ing wick
  • I: Extend­ed above IB
  • J: Made HHs

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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 — Return to Value
  • Nar­ra­tive: Pos­si­ble D1 DBD, H4 break down from consolidation
  • Pre­ferred: Strong Bear­ish Price action, 2nd chance entry per­haps, IB exten­sion down with sus­tained auction
  • Con: Trad­ing with­in new­ly formed H4 demand but per­haps weak
  • 100% cor­rect

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

C extend­ed below IB form­ing a DBD, a 2nd chance entry off new­ly formed C‑sup was my entry and D con­tin­ued fur­ther down tak­ing out H4 demand before pop­ping back up. After the pop of demand price retraced and closed as a bull engulf but weak failed auc­tion before revers­ing in the ini­tial direc­tion through a Three Inside Down. 

What was the play of the day?

A Return to Val­ue play. Mod­er­ate Imbal­ance with­in range with a H4 break down from con­sol­i­da­tion and pos­si­ble D1 DBD. Through a M30 DBD extend­ing below IB in C, con­tin­u­ing low­er extend­ed 1x IB dur­ing D pop­ping H4 demand. 

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

Hypo 1 was cor­rect although pop­ping of H4 demand (at D1 VWAP in UT) caused a lit­tle bounce and E closed as a Bull Engulf. Will review more later.

Was there an oppor­tu­ni­ty and did I take it?

There was. I visu­al­ized C clos­ing as a pos­si­ble DBD extend­ing below IB. Then D pulling back to a 2nd chance entry and that was my entry short. Banked 0.4R prof­it. Ignored my exit rule. 

DTTZ: 1st DTTZ

Entry: 2nd Chance Entry through Sell Lim­it order

Prof­it Mar­gin (ADR or con­ges­tion): Not the best as 1R was at H4 demand End and 1x IB range exten­sion cre­at­ing a nor­mal day at the time of writ­ing. There might be more con­tin­u­a­tion lat­er on. 

What would a price action exit rule have done?

0R scratch, although due to pop­ping of H4 nar­ra­tive a con­tin­u­a­tion could be expect­ed so some more time could have been added to the trade. This is some­thing I have wit­nessed before. 

How was SL place­ment and Sizing?

SL place­ment was great. Above for­ma­tion and at x.xx85 for short. Entry at x.xx60

What would time-based have done?

0.5R

What could I have done better?

Let my price action based exit take me out. Regard­less of scratch­ing or not as this is what will make me mon­ey in the long run. 

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

I felt okay before as I was stalk­ing. Okay dur­ing the trade too until I saw that H4 demand end was with­in LTF demand and thus not coin­cid­ing. I thought there could be a pop back into IB and did not want to risk it. Togeth­er with no inverse cor­re­la­tion with Gold I thought to take prof­its as I am in cap­i­tal preser­va­tion con­di­tions anyway. 

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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 2 — H4 Swing Reversal
  • Nar­ra­tive: H4 sup­ply over­head, Trad­ing with­in D1 sup­ply, pos­si­ble D1 consolidation 
  • Pre­ferred: IB exten­sion up with price action rever­sal at H4 sup­ply, per­haps a failed auc­tion or TPO struc­ture build and or sin­gle print fade
  • Con: Pos­si­ble D1 RBR
  • 80% cor­rect

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

There was no con­tin­u­a­tion to the move and no exten­sion up. Instead an Evening Star and exten­sion below. Then a failed auc­tion and out­side of trad­ing win­dow price extend­ed above IB in line with hypo 1.

What was the play of the day?

H4 Swing Rever­sal although not the best of setups. 

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

Hypo 1 did play out lat­er on the ses­sion. Hypo 2 was with­in my trad­ing window, 

Was there an oppor­tu­ni­ty and did I take it?

I did not take the oppor­tu­ni­ty as I was focused on FX. 

DTTZ: Hypo 2 at 1st DTTZ, Hypo 2 and 2nd DTTZ.

Entry: N.A.

Prof­it Mar­gin (ADR or con­ges­tion): N.A. 

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?

N.A. 

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

N.A. 

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

I did well here for the most part and I will review a few more times why I pock­et­ed the prof­it when I did. 

What did I learn today?

That I am get­ting most right. Under­stand­ing the mar­ket nar­ra­tive plus align­ing myself with it. Wait­ing for an expect­ed out­come. Even placed a sell lim­it order at a 2nd chance entry. Just need to work on my exits. 

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

Do all that I am doing pre­ced­ing tak­ing a trade. More of this. 

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

Taxe my exit pre­ma­ture­ly. Do less of this. 

Under the cir­cum­stances, did I per­form at my best?

Mwe­hh not real­ly… I could have been bet­ter. Although it was my first time objec­tive wit­ness­ing the pop of a H4 demand and con­se­quent short-term (low­er time frame) rever­sal. To pun­ish myself I had a dou­ble work­out today. Next time might have to do a Bart Simp­son exercise.

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

Pre­mar­ket Prep GBPNZD 20210408

See more

Pre­mar­ket Prep Gold 20210408

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