How did I trade today? 20210524

Sum­ma­ry: Late oppor­tunis­tic trade fad­ing the auction

#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
• Trad­ing rules
  • M15/M30 entries and exits at 1st DTTZ, M5 entries and exits at 2nd DTTZ
  • Only price-action based exit rules (or if hit time stop comes earlier)
    • Oth­er­wise a Bart Simp­son exercise

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

Com­ment: Ini­tial­ly I had giv­en myself a BAD review for trade selec­tion for not tak­ing that 1st trade. Then I bumped it up a bit for tak­ing that trade late into the session.

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Summary

• GBPNZD
  • 1st DTTZ
    • IB trad­ed low­er but leav­ing longer buy­ing wicks
    • C extend­ed one TPO above IB but closed move down test­ing IB low with no exten­sion to the oth­er side
    • Price is trad­ing mid M30/M5 swing and thus I find it hard­er to get into a trade. Also the swing isn’t very big and PA contradictory. 
    • There was a M5 Invert­ed Ham­mer at M5 QHi, M30 Sup­ply that I con­sid­ered for an entry but it was an incom­plete for­ma­tion. Then when M5 Three Out­side Down came it wasn’t very con­fi­dent plus M15 had just formed a slight Bull Engulf (which in hind­sight was actu­al­ly a con­sol­i­da­tion) so I decid­ed to let the trade go. As I write this the trade would have been at 0.5R and M15 closed as a Bear Engulf.
    • Trad­ed con­tin­ued low­er form­ing a Neu­tral Day and trade hit 1.2R tak­ing out LTF/H4 demand and it looks there might be a con­tin­u­a­tion to it. 
  • 2nd DTTZ
    • Price con­tin­ued low­er test­ing H4-C‑D 1.96743
    • I was fin­ish­ing up my DRC but then I saw M5 fal­ter­ing at H4 demand plus formed a Bull Engulf (with­in M30 QLo) late into the ses­sion, plus a Neu­tral Day going to try and fade the auc­tion here with IB low as a target. 
    • Long 1.96920 SL 1.96678 TP 1.97428 (2R) 1.97048 (0.5R)at IB edge
    • Down­side the Poor Low
    • M15 Closed as a pos­si­ble consolidation 
    • H TPO close as an Inside Bar M15 con­sol­i­da­tion (through a Doji with very slight­ly longer buy­ing wick) con­tin­ued let­ting it go for anoth­er 15 min­utes, Although H4 clos­ing as a Three Inside Down is not a good sign. Com­mit­ting to the trade though. Think­ing there might be some pull back.
    • M5 demand cre­at­ed above fol­lowed with anoth­er M5 Bull Engulf clos­ing in new­ly formed M5 Sup­ply. Mon­i­tor­ing for pop­ping of said sup­ply and M15 clos­ing high­er to poten­tial­ly con­sid­er let­ting it go anoth­er 15 min­utes if M15 clos­es as a RBR. It did close as a RBR but very flim­sy… watch­ing like a hawk for M5 to show a sign of weak­ness to get out. 
    • Price test­ing TPO struc­ture high where there is one sin­gle print of G whe if tak­en out price could poten­tial­ly see a continuation.
    • Just took it out and look for IB low but there is anoth­er lit­tle struc­ture right there…. 
    • Took 0.2R prof­it which I am hap­py with… Kin­da. I did well to take the trade and stick­ing with it. Although I was visu­al­iz­ing what I want­ed to see I decid­ed to take some prof­it here. Progress, not per­fec­tion. Now I’ll sit here and prob­a­bly watch the trade go hit my intend­ed target. 

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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 — Bal­anc­ing Mar­ket / Val­ue Rejec­tion Failure
  • Nar­ra­tive: Open sen­ti­ment, brack­et­ing range
  • Pre­ferred: Play off LTF SD or ADR lev­els, pos­si­bly at H4‑C‑D 1.96743 (M30 QLo), ADR 0.5 High above Val­ue, slight­ly above range with­in M30 QHi
  • Con: Pos­si­ble H4 Phase 1 / 3 there could be a val­ue rejec­tion instead
  • 100% cor­rect

What hap­pened around the 1st DTTZ? Which Hypo played out (if any)?

Price trad­ed low­er before then extend­ing above IB and form­ing a LTF rever­sal at M5 QH and M30 Sup­ply at MN-C‑S 1.97330. 

What hap­pened around the 2nd DTTZ? Which Hypo played out (if any)?

Price then pro­ceed­ed to con­tin­ue below IB form­ing a Neu­tral Day tak­ing out LTF/H4 demand. Pos­si­bly attempt­ing a Val­ue Rejec­tion Down as per Hypo 2.

What was the play of the day?

Bal­anc­ing Mar­ket Play

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 an oppor­tu­ni­ty but I did not take it. I thought the M5 rever­sal pat­tern was­n’t very con­fi­dent as well as the oppo­site swing not pro­vid­ing much of a prof­it tar­get. I was wrong. 

EDIT: towards the end of the ses­sion I noticed M5 fal­ter­ing at H4 demand and clos­ing with a M5 Bull Engulf so I decid­ed to go long. I expect­ed  for price to tran­si­tion into a M15 RBR and then a M30 Three Inside Up reach­ing for IB low

DTTZ: 2nd

Entry: M5 Bull Engulf, entry could have been slight­ly bet­ter as I hes­i­tat­ed a lit­tle due to check­ing if SL place­ment would have been good. Not the worst though. 

Prof­it Mar­gin (ADR or con­ges­tion): Fad­ing the Auc­tion to IB low would have yield­ed 0.5R

What would a price action exit rule have done?

M5 Three Inside Down would have yield­ed ‑0.2R

How was SL place­ment and Sizing?

SL place­ment was good as it was the stan­dard size and below formation. 

What would time-based have done?

M30 I TPO closed as a slight Three Inside Up but still below entry and would yield­ed ‑0.2R

What could I have done better?

I could have tak­en the trade even though I didn’t find the pat­tern con­fi­dent. Trade loca­tion was good but I was a bit thrown off by M15/M30 con­tra­dict­ing PA. Com­bined with a pos­si­ble H4 Phase 3 at MN Sup­ply there was more of a prob­a­bil­i­ty for price to move down. 

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

Kin­da feel­ing bummed for not hav­ing tak­en the first oppor­tu­ni­ty. Learned again though. Feel good for tak­ing that 2nd oppor­tunis­tic trade and being in the thick of mon­i­tor­ing through OODA. Felt good. 

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

I did well here

What did I learn today?

That I should trust my instinct and take trades accord­ing­ly. So often am I right and at least I could have got­ten a buffer trade out of it. 

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

Stay obser­vant of mar­ket narrative 

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

Chick­en out on poten­tial trad­ing ideas. EDIT: I did well to take that last trade and just jump in. Then I did real­ly well to mon­i­tor through OODA loops and visu­al­iz­ing what I want­ed to see. Then I did not so well to take prof­its too soon but being in over­lap noise time I think I did okay to just pock­et some prof­its. Plus with­out any TPO struc­ture and a Poor Low I (as well as new­ly formed H4 Three Inside Down) I thought the trade to be a bit risky. 

Under the cir­cum­stances, did I per­form at my best?

At first I thought I did poor­ly but then I saw an oppor­tunis­tic trade and I went for it so it kin­da made up for it. But to address the point that I felt not hav­ing done well has got to do with the fact I didn’t cap­i­tal­ize on that first oppor­tu­ni­ty even though I was stalk­ing it. I start­ed feel­ing am I just hes­i­tat­ing here or what? I feel that the bal­anc­ing mar­ket play is some­thing I used to do well but only recent­ly am mak­ing it a con­scious effort to trade them with good mon­ey on the line. So I am going to fol­low my own voice and say that it is okay for not tak­ing trades if I am not feel­ing con­fi­dent. At the same time I need to keep in mind that rarely will there be a clean cut con­fi­dent oppor­tu­ni­ty and I should push myself to take more trades. HOWEVER…. Hav­ing said that… there is a time and place for every­thing… If I had more buffer trades in ear­li­er this month I might have been think­ing dif­fer­ent­ly about tak­ing that trade. Only way to find out is focus­ing on those buffer trades and then see if I am will­ing to take more risks. My bet is I will. Always bet on your­self my friend. Always. 

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

Pre­mar­ket Prep GBPNZD 20210524

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Pre­mar­ket Prep Gold 20210524

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