Lost 2.75 points in the MES. (SIM)

Followed my updated process to the T this morning. Didn't wake up and check Facebook, YouTube, or anything like that. Went straight to meditating, then went on ahead, completing all of the steps. I did my analysis and realized my bias was long, so I wrote that down on a piece of paper in front of me. I established to myself that it would be acceptable to go long at the open if price tests higher highs out of the gate. There was some hesitation at the open, but there were convincing surges to the upside not soon after, so I entered the breakout. Price ended up going 4 points in my favor, then it reversed and stopped me out (I was in the trade for an hour and 20 minutes). I realized not even halfway through the development of the trade that the "attempted direction" of price was poor, so I thought it was more likely for me to get stopped out anyways. Price was laboriously advancing tick by tick, with many sudden multi-tick drops. Even with that being the case, I still intend to hold my trades no matter what. Once I get better at analyzing price real-time and can be objective, then I'll consider closing trades early. For now, I'm layering solutions to problems on top of each other, and challenging myself on a week to week basis. I had a slow start to goal creation this week.



Overall, decent trading day.

1/7 days complete.

Lost 6.25 points in the MES today (SIM)

First trade was a bearish breakout at 9:51 that failed (-3.25 points):



The second trade was based on the fact that price was rejected again and again at lower lows. I anticipated a bullish regression because of this, particularly a move up to the mid 2770's. As I type this, price is approaching that area- I may have just entered too early. We'll see. (-3 points)



It has been a dismal two weeks for me. Breakouts haven't worked since week 1 of me trading the MES. I lost all of last week and all of this week, with the exception of gaining 1.25 points on Tuesday. I find myself automatically entering on important levels because I find it difficult to trade what's going on in the OrderFlow, because I don't want to miss a move. It's just as hard to distinguish what kind of trading day it is, or what kind of trading day it's going to be.. I'll keep following my process though, and especially be more deliberate about reading price action all of next week. I think most of the losses I endured could've been avoided, had I been more patient and waited for the market to show it's true colors over time, and if I hadn't of mindlessly entered on seemingly important levels. This is a strong habit that I have to break, and I didn't expect that I would have a hard time moving past it. I'm debating on not trading around lines whatsoever, so I can better focus on what's actually happening with price.

The updated process I posted a day or two ago is still very relevant. I think the biggest problem I have is that I'm not adaptable / not good at step 4 of my process yet. I think it just takes a lot of practice.. I'm pretty new to seriously using OrderFlow, after all. Anyways, I'll do my best next week. I'll stick to my process and try to be as adaptable as I can be. No more hiding behind pre-set entries, I have to trade price directly.

This post is an attempt to put my trading journey into perspective for myself and to those who care to read it, in light of my recent progress in terms of consistency and discipline, and partly because of the silly mistakes I've made this week. I was first introduced to trading pretty recently in February of 2018. I was looking to find another way to make money besides working a day job, and I wanted to get into something that was entrepreneurial. The first thing that came to my mind in pursuit of this alternative source of income was investing, so I got on the internet, watched some YouTube videos on it and particularly stumbled upon "Phil Towns Rule 1 Investing" and became very intrigued. This lead to a YouTube binge on the subject- I got familiar with stocks and how they work, and eventually found out through my serial watching of investing videos that there's this thing called "day trading." I watched one of Ross Camerons morning uploads, and the first video I saw by him was one where he made ~$2000 in one day. I was fascinated by this, and desparately wanted to learn how to trade because of it. Who doesn't want to make thousands in less than an hour, at home? I was sold.

After watching video after video about day trading (I started watching ClayTrader and Day Trading Academy as well to learn the basics) and over the course of a couple of weeks, I became absolutely immersed and obsessed. I learned what candlesticks are, I learned the different kinds of financial instruments and how they differ- I went crazy researching all things day trading. I established to myself that I was going to buy a computer so I could learn how to trade more effectively, because my phone didn't cut it. The thing was, I didn't have enough money to buy a computer at the time, so I eagerly created a budget so I could save more money at a faster rate. I've never been much of a spender, so saving this money didn't take very long. So between February and June of 2018, I worked, and I watched day trading videos in my free time. Of course I did other things, but working and day-dreaming about trading was mostly what I did. In this period of time, I also separated from wanting to trade stocks, and instead, focused on futures trading. This is because futures don't require $25,000, and I didn't want to go through a sketchy offshore broker. Anyways, at the beginning of June and after a month of occasionally looking at PC parts (I wanted to make this a gaming rig as well), I finally bought a PC, custom-made. In my eyes, this was the first step to becoming a trader.

My desktop arrived on 6-18-2018, and on this same day, I went to NinjaTraders website on my brand new PC and downloaded their free platform. I was discouraged to find when I was in the process of learning how to use the platform, that you can't use stop losses with the free version. Because of this, I ended up buying the lease (no regrets here) and created a demo account. It came with 2 free weeks of live data, which I was happy about. After everything was ready to go, I took my first trades in SIM in the ES, and logged them:





Hilarious mistakes in these logs.. Anyways, I went on SIM trading until 7-27-2018. I committed every mistake in the book in my first bout of SIM trading, and I became disenchanted with trading as a whole because of piling losses. I eventually got sick of trading in SIM, and felt I was doing myself a disservice because I wasn't actually "in the game." I couldn't take it seriously because there was nothing on the line. It felt stupid, and I just wanted to trade real money. While knowing I wasn't ready to trade live, I wanted to experience it anyways. So, at the end of August and after a month off of trading in SIM, I deposited $1500 into my trading account. I knew I would probably lose all of this money in the first place, and I said I accepted the risk of losing it all, but that's not how I really felt. Deep down, like most people and other traders, I wanted to at least double this money- however unlikely it was. I didn't know what I was doing at all (I'm still kind of ignorant), I just wanted to experience real, live trading.

The first live trade I took was on September 3, 2018. Unfortunately, I didn't journal any of my first live trades, so I can't pull anything out of my little archive to show. I do remember what happened and how it was, though: The ES was deathly slow, but at the time, I didn't know what was normal in terms of volume. I didn't get familiar enough with the ES from using the demo live data feed, and ended up using the borderline useless simulated data feed connection (that's why I got so sick of SIM, I think) instead, for the last 2 weeks of my SIM trading. Anyways, I entered the ES around 11am, and I think I was long- I don't remember my stop loss width, it was most likely something unreasonable- then I put my earphones in, and went for a run as the trade "developed". When I came back a half hour later, I was 3 ticks in the red. I closed the position right then and there, and even though I lost $37.50 not including commissions, I was proud that I took my first live trade ever. As underwhelming as the experience seems, it wasn't underwhelming for me, then.

I traded live until October 23, 2018. The first week, there was a day when I lost ~$200 all at once. It didn't feel "real." I remember staring at my computer screen in disbelief afterwards, I was in disbelief in the fact that your money can disappear just like that, if you don't know what you're doing. I knew this could happen, but experiencing it firsthand hit it home. After that major loss, I realized I needed to risk way less per trade, so that's what I did from then on. I started risking 4 to 7 ticks per trade (which is still huge risk, given my acc. size) but I never used profit targets. I actually did have a strategy, but I never followed my own rules consistently. There were days I'd gain $25, $37.50, but these winners were few and far between and overshadowed by more frequent losses of $50, $75 and so on. In this process, I stumbled across nexusfi.com, created an account, and made my first post out of desperation:

Me I'm a brand new futures trader. I started trading real "capital" (if you wanna call $1500 capital) on the third of this month. I was paper trading for a month and a half beforehand, just to get familiar with the NinjaTrader 8 platform and …

. All in all, I died a slow death in my first account, and experienced absolutely insane market conditions mid October, which was stressful and exciting at the same time. I realized that trading is way harder than I thought it would be, and that I couldn't just wing this. I stopped trading with ~$600 left in my account, and I went back to SIM, in an attempt to actually learn how to trade. That same $600 is now $450, after inactivity fees, live data payments, and very recent MNQ live trading.

I realized that I was trading haphazardly. I was trading whenever I saw what I thought was an opportunity, and I was approaching the market in too much of an open-ended manner for being a beginner. So I restricted myself to trading double tops only. This didn't last very long though, because double tops didn't appear every day and I thought I was missing opportunities, so I gradually returned back to trading broadly again. So I went from acting on double tops only for roughly 3 weeks after returning to SIM, to then trading based on chart alignment. I called this newer strategy my "synchronicity" process. During this time, if I saw a double top, I would still trade it too- it's just that my new process took precedence over DTs. From October 30, 2018 (When I first started SIM trading again, but seriously) to January 3, 2019, I survived using these two approaches. I was breakeven for 2 months, which I'm proud of now. From January 4, 2019 to February 19, 2019, I went through a losing period and my account slowly bled out to $3500, from an initial balance of $5000. I was not pleased. I actually started my journal on January 22, 2019, so if you want to see my downward spiral, check it out.

I was defeated. I was doing well for 2 months (as in surviving), and then I went into a major drawdown from where it was unlikely for me to return, unless I took big risk and got lucky- which is a stupid way to approach trading. Market conditions changed, and I didn't and couldn't adapt. Because of this, I stopped trading for a month (the end of February to the end of March), and instead put more emphasis on learning the more quantative side of trading. This is when I truly got into back-testing. During this time away, I analyzed price at the open without trading so I could get familiar with price movement, and I back-tested different strategies that revolve around the double top pattern- two strategies of which are theoretically mildly successful. On March 27, 2019, after a month of no trading, I started applying one of my back-tested strategies in SIM with discretionary intervention allowed for trades, which I thought would have a positive influence. I started journaling these trades here, too. Not even a week or two into applying this DT strategy, I started a discretionary trading account in SIM along with it, because I found that trading a single pattern didn't suit me. I would trade each strategy depending on what the market was doing on a given day. Overtime, I forgot about trading my DT account all-together because discretionary trading is really where my heart is. I practically blew up another $5000 account in SIM fast- the discretionary one- and here I am now: trading in the MES. I still don't know know if my automated DT strategy has edge or not, because I never let it play itself out. If things don't work out with my current endeavor, I'll return to it. I'm more interested and focused on discretionary trading.

I'm not looking for certain patterns or set-ups anymore. I seek to better understand market supply and demand, to take advantage of imbalances through OrderFlow, and to make sense of larger context of price action through volume and market profile. I want my edge to be through an understanding of how markets really move- I don't want my edge to be through strictly mechanical means. Through this process of finding my edge and my niche, naturally there will be a lot of uncertainty. Trading is full of it. All I can do now is follow where my interests lead me, educate myself, and experiment in a consistent manner. I'm currently in the process of developing a more realistic view of the market, which means I may deviate from trading breakouts most of the time (unless the context calls for it). I know I need to become more creative and thoughtful with my entries, and start trading less frequently and just get into the habit of letting price develop before entering a trade, so I can actually understand what's happening and make better decisions. As long as I keep going strong, follow my process and learn from my mistakes, I feel confident that I'll eventually figure something out.

Gained 6 points in the MES today. (SIM)

Price was approaching last Fridays value area out of the open. It quickly got there and I responded:





Best trading I've done in awhile. What did I do differently?

Chronological order of novel events of my process (redundant info but useful for my future trading):
1. Meditated longer than usual because I was having a hard time focusing. I eventually got there. I didn't give up mindfulness.
2. I didn't deliberately come up with scenarios at all, but my automatic inclination was that price was very likely to test Fridays value area and something was bound to happen. I didn't set pre-determined entries or exits. I mostly tried relaxing before the open.
3. When the open came, I was mindful and observant. I wasn't trying to get anything going like I usually do. I focused on what price was doing, and responded to a strong signal.
4. I didn't have a set profit target when I entered, but mid-trade, I determined exactly where I was going to get out based on my hypothesis chart and certain levels. My profit target was reasonable.

The major difference between today's trading, and most of the trading I've done in the past, is that I didn't plan for a gazillion scenarios. I traded what was happening. I'm going to replicate this tomorrow, because trading this way is very satisfying.

I missed a lot of opportunities today though, but I wanted to get a win under my belt for emotional capital. All in all, a great trading day. Also, I will remember this set-up and consistently act on it if there's proper signals. I enjoyed this trade.

Gained 4.75 points in the MES.

Trade 1:



This trade was based on nothing more than me trying to predict market direction without evidence. I remember thinking that price was going to take off at any moment, given the prices we were at at the time: I considered 2765 to 2770 good buy locations, clearly getting progressively worse the higher the price. I had missed an opportunity to go long when we were in the lower spectrum of these prices, and felt anxious that I was going to miss the move. I know that this anxiety was building up as time went on, ever since I first glanced at my hypothesis chart (MES was climbing the upside pre-open), and I lost objectivity along the way. -3 points. After I lost this trade, I got my head straight out of determination. I re-focused on what matters.

Trade 2:





+7.75 points. I was realistic with my exit.

Distress, particularly FOMO, costed me points. Going into tomorrows trading I'll remember exactly what happened today. Because of this event/poor trade, I'm putting more emphasis on staying mindful while trading right before the open, and I'll remind myself to pay attention to price action before the open as well- instead of getting lost in my old, regressive, habitual way of trading (predicting). It's ok to be lightly stressed while trading, but it's not acceptable to be anxious to the point of falling back into making poor decisions.

"You will change when you’re ready to change, and you’ll be ready to change when you recognize that you need to change.. by becoming more emotionally connected to the consequences of our behavior, we cultivate that need to change."

"When you coach yourself, focus your efforts and let one success fuel others."

"Double Down. When you first make a desired change, don’t let up. Rather, focus on what you did to make that change and redouble your efforts. Make your goal to sustain that change. All too often, traders let up once they make an initial improvement. That’s like hurting your opponent in a boxing ring and then not moving in to finish him off. You want progress to double your motivation, not let your bad habits off the hook. We’ve seen that the enemy of change is relapse: all of us too easily fall back into old patterns if we’re not making conscious and sustained efforts to build new ones. The key to change is relapse prevention: repeating new patterns so often that they become natural to us. Any change worthy of pursuit is worth repeating 30 times in 30 days. In Alcoholics Anonymous, a committed new member will attend 90 meetings in 90 days; “bring the body in and the mind will follow” is the slogan. Make the change consistently enough and it will be your change."

"Stay Positive. “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” is the philosophy of those who fail to work on trading until they’re broke. If you’re trading well, that’s one of the best times to coach yourself. Your goal isn’t to change what’s working; it’s to become even more consistent in your efforts. Doing more of what works is a valuable goal that helps you press your advantage when you’re doing well. The alternative, sitting back on your laurels when you’re making money, will bring comfort, but not elite levels of success. I recently met with a prop trader who was trading very well on relatively small size. A quick look at his Sharpe Ratio and trading results suggested that he could be making much more money simply by running more risk in his portfolio and sticking to his bread and-butter setups and markets. We developed a plan for doing that and he turned good success into outstanding success. By formulating positive goals—focusing on changes that involve doing more of the right things—he made the most of his strengths. It’s for that reason that I often tell people that the best time for coaching is when you’re doing really well and really poorly."

"The best traders, I find, are those who have made self-improvement a way of life. Such traders are driven in their work lives, their physical fitness, and their recreations. They derive great meaning and satisfaction from being the best they can be. The same is true of great athletes: they love working out;they constantly challenge themselves. It’s when change is a lifestyle that we see exemplary performance. At that point, self-coaching becomes a life philosophy—an organizing principle—not just a discrete activity among many during the day or week."

- Dr. Brett N Steenbarger, "The Daily Trading Coach: 101 Lessons For Becoming Your Own Trading Psychologist"

Gained 1.75 points in the MES.



I usually lose on these kind of days. Upfront, my bias was bullish, and in my process of trying to find good trade location to go long after the open (Admittedly I was uncomfortable trading against the trend), I thought ~2810 was an area bears would have a hard time traversing. Before they actually reached that price, at 10am I went long on relatively strong bullish momentum (pre-mature rally, I thought), which was short lived. Price shot up 4.75 points after I entered, then quickly dropped, so I closed the position then and there with a 1.75 point gain. It was erratic and questionable price action that I haven't seen very often in this context, so I became somewhat hyper-vigilant to false entry signals afterwards. I continued looking for more bullish momentum, but price was predominantly bearish and sold off past the bottom of the range and ended up reaching 2801. I wasn't going to chase the action. Because of my bias, my mind was initially closed off to entering short. As price passed 2810, I became more open to going short, but thought I missed the majority of the move, so I didn't bother. Volume dried up a bit as well, for my standards. I need to approach future range days like this from now on: carefully. Once I can become careful and patient in range days and understand the fluctuations and learn to become more discriminate with my entries, then I can take on bigger risk by holding longer. As of now, I need to learn how to survive bracket trading. Today, I did well.

The main difference between todays range trading and my past range trading, is that I closed when the position dramatically went against me. I was also biased to the long-side.

I could've done better in regards to managing my long bias.

I find that my behavior is getting more and more discretionary as I learn the footprint and price ladder. I'm starting to trust my own judgement, and I feel that I'm actually adapting to the market.

"You've gotta understand the context and know how to expertly manage that particular contextual situation. There is no one size fits all trade management scheme that you should just blanket apply to everything. You need to understand that there's better ways to manage certain trades in certain environments and other trades in other environments."

- Merritt Black

"The art to becoming a good trader.. get these ideas out of your head of running a market 2-300 ticks, you know, doing these holy grail trades.. That's not how the game works. The game works when the market starts to sell off cause there's a seller in it, and you wanna be short- that's when you get in. Not before- you only get in once that seller steps in. Why? Because it's that seller that makes the market go down."

-Brannigan Barrett

These two quotes encompass where I'm at with my trading right now. Broadly speaking, I'm focusing on becoming objective and adaptable as a trader. I've been following through with my updated process consistently, ever since last Thursday, except I made an adjustment to improve my odds of success this Monday. Step 3 of my process has to do with coming up with scenarios of future price action, and doing pre-open market analysis. To remain objective while trading, I now minimally follow-through with this step because I realized that I easily become attached to the scenarios I come up with, and only trade the scenarios (regardless of conditions even), not price action. It's easier and way less stressful to trade at pre-determined levels, entries and exits than to trade momentum directly- that's why I developed this bad habit in the first place. It's like a coping mechanism for trading anxiety. I can't be adaptable with that approach.

The past 3 trading days though, I've been very engaged and absorbed by the market during my performance. I've been looking for opportunity on a moment to moment basis, and I love it.. Acting on momentum and trading the interaction of significant levels is it for me- not exactly because it has been working the past 3 days (not a good indication of my success anyways), but because I really enjoy it. There's something to detecting imbalances and big volume in price action- it adds more of a reactionary element to the game, and you have to be perceptive to the subtleties to prepare for a move. Anyways, overall, I'm excited about this approach, and if I can manage to hold trades on top of having adopted these new qualities, I'll be in a great position.

No trades in the MES today.

The open was relatively weak, especially compared to the past couple of days. After price tested 2835 on the energy of the open, it retreated back down to around 2826. It then went into a range, attempting to push lower but didn't have solid directional conviction. The bearish effort accomplished 2823, then the sellers dried up and we reversed 7 points. That exhaustion play was the best opportunity in my eyes, but because of the lack of directional conviction and volume, I thought it wasn't worth entering the market. There was a point where I tightened my risk to 2 points, just in case an opportunity aligned with that risk amount, but I want to be yielding rather an opportunistic on these kind of days. I get beat up in slow markets. As I type this now, price is laboriously pushing into that tight range we established overnight and this morning (2834-2838). Still not worth it IMO!

Anyways, I think I performed well. I did everything that I was supposed to do according to my process and rules. 6/7 days completed.

"So what are you running from? Think of your worst trading patterns as defensive maneuvers: actions you’re taking to ward off emotional pain. Then, when you refuse to act on those patterns, just sit with the experience and see what you feel. See if you can find a different way to handle that feeling. Very, very often, beneath our impulsive trading, our anxious avoidance of risk, our outbursts, and our mismanagement of risk are efforts to protect us from a painful emotional experience. Once you find that experience and contact those feelings, you find there’s nothing to run from. You can handle loss, fears of failure, and disappointment. As your coach, you only need to prove that to you."

"It is not unusual for traders to personalize markets. Sometimes we view markets as dangerous, as out to get us, as rigged games, as treasure chests, as playgrounds, or as complex puzzles. When we attribute human characteristics to markets, we have to ask ourselves why we choose some qualities over others. Just as I projected authority onto my therapist, we project the qualities we most struggle with onto markets. This is a kind of transference. If we’ve lived for years with the sense that no one listened to us, we now feel that markets are irrational and capricious. If we’ve felt that others have taken advantage of us, we may just focus our frustration on the market makers who manipulate markets to our detriment."

"There’s a saying traders use: “Let the market come to you.” What that implies is that you should approach markets with an open mind, processing patterns as they unfold. This means being free of projections, free of conflicts that we transfer to our trading. By tracking how you talk to markets— and about them— you can step back from those repetitive themes and truly let markets come to you."

- Brett N. Steenbarger