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I hope everyone is well! I've been a lurker here for a while, and I really respect what the community does here.
I was hoping for some feedback on my trades from today.
I don't want to whine about how much I suck and hate myself, I'm sure you understand, but this is really a cry for help haha. I've been trying to trade for years, and honestly I'm struggling and at the end of my tether.
The chart is from the S&P, May 16th 2019, time is -3hrs from NY, (I trade the cash market so I can trade smaller size while i'm learning, I actually trade with another broker so I just drew on this chart in pink my entries/exits).
On my chart is VWAP, 50% line, then some boxed areas I drew in as support/resistance. I've studied volume spread/price analysis (VSA, Wyckoff etc) for years, so volume is also on the chart, I'm using about a 2/3 point stop and I guess I aim for 1-2R targets but i'm inconsistent in sticking to that because of the usual psychological issues, getting greedy, scared etc.
I guess I've struggled to strictly define my "playbook", I guess my strategy is to try and read the price action & volume and S/R and see how I do.
The trades...
1 & 2. Buying a pullback, pretty hopeful after this long run up, but... ya never know... lose
3. Now I'm thinking the top was the top and we're now entering a downtrend, so I sell the consolidation as as "pullback in time" continuation, I don't take any profit, hate myself and scratch it.
4. Trying to sell the pullback for another move down.. too early... lose
5. Now it's the real end to the pullback, sell again, happy with my 2R win
6. Just seen the bounce from VWAP put in a higher high, but I tell myself this is still at resistance and sell the "pullback"... lose
7. It's bounced again from VWAP, quick go long... lose
8. It's bounced from this support, go long, although no idea why I thought that huge red candle was a good sign... lose
So all in all 8 trades, won:1 lost:6 and in money terms, I won ~$30, lost ~$60 so down $30 on the day.
Any feedback appreciated, to be honest I don't know what I'm hoping to receive, I'm just so lost, I'm reaching out to try and find something! Thanks
Self-loathing in trading seems common, although you can see it this way: it's always the case when things go wrong in life. Trading is very difficult so the two things come naturally.
Personally I approach trading by asking myself the question "Do I have an edge?". By that I mean, have I identified a pattern or market behavior that I think has a good chance of being exploited for a profit?
If I have, I then start trading that (likely in SIM first) and collect metrics that help me measure it.
If not, I keep looking.
Do you have an edge, as defined in a way similar to this?
In a word, no, not in the sense of a candlestick pattern, that I have probabilities for. I have spent hundreds of hours backtesting with very mixed results - I don't feel I can trust my manual results, because of hindsight bias, so I code strategies and backtest them, and I never seem to capture what I'm looking for. So I try to trade small on a live account and use those stats, as it also captures my emotions in-the-moment regarding trade management.
I lean more on VSA theory than patterns I guess, although obvs that does have patterns, but volume and candle size being relative makes things a little less clear than "engulfing candle" y'know. The VSA logic and theory makes sense to me from a "this is logical" point of view, which I guess is why I've stuck with it, even when I'm not doing great and I see many traders not even caring about volume.
It sounds like you are backtesting certain patterns (by "patterns" I mean anything repeatable that can be observed in the markets) but then trying to trade them discretionarily. Is that correct?
Yeah that would be fair, I'm using repeatable patterns which I struggle to code, so for example an ideal set-up for me would be... price moves in to support, there's high volume first candle with low spread on a few candles in consolidation following (or a small bounce double bottom), they have long wicks to the bottom, volume drops off, I'm thinking it's about to reverse, I'd take that long trade, stop below.
I often find myself always wanting to trade reversals because of that, so I've been forcing myself to try and take pullbacks, which is getting me in to some trouble too, because I find my VSA reading is poor for pullbacks
I've been down that road (i.e. trying to backtest something and then trade it in a discretionary way) and I did not get much out of it. My current view is that if you like backtesting, maybe you might want to consider getting into algo trading.
My attempt to give you some feedback. Now granted, everyone has a different trading method/system. How I would have traded this is in the picture. Any questions about what I put, let me know.
You only have 8 trades over 1 day? Not much to draw any conclusions.
You need to change your orientation to the market to have greater probability of success. Did you follow your process? Do you know why you are trading? You have to go deeper then your outcome.
However, my insights are:
1. Did you draw the graylines/areas in advance? Those look like really good zones. Why aren't you trading those?
2. It looks to me like you are getting chopped up by the algos. Are you using market orders? I suspect so. You may need to switch to limit or use bigger stop.
3. Your trades look too evenly distributed in time.
