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Until we significantly roll over, I'll be looking to get long whenever and wherever possible. The 14 day ADR is about 20 handles; I think we might see volatility dry up a bit because of the push to new highs, so until proven wrong, I will look for a reduced daily range to 12-15 handles.
Friday's POC is right near the highs at 2122.50. This area should continue to be auctioned, especially because Friday didn't go out on the highs and we lost about six points from the highs to the closing print. If we gap lower I'd look for Friday vwap at 2116 to auction and hold before pushing higher back to the 2122.50 POC. 2117 is somewhat of a POC--a VWAP touch will probably auction back and forth instead of being a touch-and-turn.
Thursday's POC is 2090.50. If we gap down in the overnight and lose Friday's lows, I would look for an auction of 2090 as a stopping point. This action is very unlikely though; momentum is up, the market is up, and a thirty point drop is unlikely.
I have two theories for Monday:
1: The market continues a spectacular rally up to another ADR-H around 2040. In this case, I'll be buying +1SD vwap and scaling along +2SD, hopefully for a solid 10-15 point day.
2: The market chops around today's range. In this case, I would see Monday as a brief pause in the uptrend. I'd look to buy 2116 and target new highs beyond Friday's spike.
Trade 1: Long SI, stopped myself out for a $525 loss.
Trade 2: Long SI, stopped myself out for a $325 loss.
Trade 3: Long 2 Si, exited both for a $550 profit total.
- My silver trades were haphazard. I originally entered the first trade with a stop loss of $1000, which was a little bit under the overnight open. I know better than to place stops around important swing levels. That was foolish.
- I justified reentry over and over again which ended up starting my week at -$300. Silver is a large contract and hopping in and out will eat me alive if I keep doing that.
Monday:
Trade 4: Long 2133, added to the position as the market ticked up. I was happy with the basis and the location. However, I exited the trade for just a tick in profit instead of closer to the MFE which was about 3 handles.
- I should have pulled my income target closer. A five point target starts to become a significant portion of the daily range, while three points is a bit more within noise. Income targets inside of noise around the entry sound more reasonable, while letting a runner go for a full ten handles would be nice.
Trade 5: Long 2134.75
- I revenge traded again. I bought twice my normal size on the bet that the market would push to new highs before the close. I was definitely wrong and my R/R was awful and I completely regret taking the trade. It moved against me, and then for me, and then against me. I closed a couple of contracts for a profit but the loss that I took on the last two was significant.
Current Week P&L: -$525, -4.5 ES points and -12 ticks in SI.
What I did well:
- Looking back on it, very little. I didn't scare out of my initial long ES for 1.25 points initially. However, I exited for 0.25 points on a three lot which is disappointing compared to a 3 handle MFE. I traded slowly and methodically at the start, though the end of day became haphazard as I tried to nurse the double-size position back to green.
What I did poorly:
- I revenge traded. It seems that I manage to revenge trade almost every single day in some capacity or another. Instead of walking away from the computer when I got stopped out for 0.25 points, I almost immediately entered the next buy order.
- I didn't execute properly. I woke up late this morning and missed the open (though I didn't have any trades planned for the open). However, getting up late meant that I wasn't in tune with the market when the lows were put in. I actually considered selling the VWAP! I'm obviously glad that I didn't. Going forward, I need to be focused and understand the feel of the day before entering a position. I chased the long all the way up from the lows--overall, I think this cost me because I was chasing a dragon of sorts before I even clicked buy.
Next Time:
I'm very susceptible to FOMO (fear of missing out) and I think that this costs me more than anything else does. If I start feeling like I need to buy or sell immediately or I'll be left behind, I need to take a step back from the computer and breathe for a little while. Chances are that I'll improve my expectancy by not taking these stupid trades.
Ahh...FOMO -> My demon with side effects of over revenge/over trading. I don't know if it helped me or not (I think it did), but last night after doing my homework I was excited to get back into the market, another week to start and oh boy! Things are so clear, I just want to buy everything that smells like a dip (until proven otherwise). Then I just acknowledged it.
What calmed me down was acknowledging and accepting what I was feeling and then understanding it's better to be cautious because I was feeling like that. FOMO is definitely amplified by that late start to the day though.
Trade in the present: what do you see developing today?
Pertaining to your FOMO comment above there are a couple things I want to point out about today but I don't want you to feel that I'm intruding- just want to be sure that you realized them- In the spoos thread you called a range day right after LOD and said you expected 35 to be the top. This was spot on but you:
a) did not buy when you made that excellent call
b) you bought where you felt the top would be
You mentioned something about a "safe" trade location ( on iPad so I can't read the post while replying)- when your thesis was range day- what makes anything inside the ADR any safer than the moment you knew? I think you were bidding 26s after price retuned to VWAP from LOD - From a price action perspective- would you have wanted that fill if VWAP held and made another lower high with the RTH gap below? If the answer is yes- wouldn't it have made sense to grab a pilot position on the way up? I'm just trying to provoke thought- certainly not saying should have... When it comes to FOMO, sometimes we overlook the obvious and remembering how these thing looked in the past can help in the future.
Having tech difficulties on my iPad. Half my post dissappeared. Every time I press the letter after f I crazy things happen- hve to use predictive text to type-
My whole post above is not written as I intended- I tried to correct it but keep having trouble. Hope it makes a little sense as is but I give up on correcting it on this devise
Monday saw the market make new ATH's and then back off in a pretty significant fashion. We lost VWAP by the time the market closed, and afterhours trade isn't doing much to help the bullish case right now. I'm starting to consider today as a sort of inverse of last Thursday's trade.
Last Thursday we popped higher on the open and then pushed down about ten handles or so to lows near 2082. By the time the dust had cleared on the close, the market had recovered the RTH VWAP at 2091. Today auctioned down to 2125 before turning around and grinding higher. By the time we closed, the market lost RTH VWAP around 2132 and closed at 2130.50. Friday saw an impressive rally. Will Tuesday see a dismal crash?
I doubt it.
For argument's sake, today's trade was a moot point. We traded ATH and then backed off to close essentially unchanged. Today had a gorgeous double-distribution in the volume profile which has the feel of OTF evaluating new highs and cutting them back down nearly ten points. The two prices of interest--this is not smoothed, so the prices are exact--are 2133.75 and 2130.25 as HVNs. The LVN in the middle is at 2132.25.
This range is small. These levels are, to me, meaningless. They don't feel like the product of actual important OTF trade; moreso a by product of retail getting stopped out above and below with a close near the open.
Here are my possible scenarios for tomorrow.
1: The market opens inside of today's range (most likely lower, following afternoon selling). We auction lower to fill in the 2125 zone, reach Friday's POC at 2122, and push lower to Friday's VWAP at 2116. That gives us about a ten point range; Monday's range was 11.50. From 2116 I expect buyers to step in for rotation back up to the 2122 POC zone.
2: The market gaps open again outside of today's range. Another range like today will put us into 2149. 2150 is likely to see stops as a psychological level.
In either case, I expect Tuesday's trade to be more lively (or at least have a larger range) than Monday. It felt like the markets needed a day to digest the Jobs data, and today's close near the open did just that.
By all means, please feel free to comment here Criticism and "pointing out the obvious" will only help me better my trading.
1: I think I didn't buy because I wasn't in tune with the market. I had only just sat down, had actually placed a sell at -1SD before quickly yanking it, and my thoughts were scattered.
2: Honestly, had the market traded the 26s I would have been very nervous (edge of my thesis sort of thing). I (hopefully) would have taken the fill there with the belief that the LVN at 2126 would give a healthy bounce again.
3: Now reading back over what I wrote, I cannot believe that I bought so close to the highs! I think one of my big issues too is sticking with a thesis. I start to see the market move and get tunnel vision in the direction I want rather than keeping my thesis in the back of my mind.
Tunnel vision. I can't remember if I read this in a trading book or another business/non fiction/self help type stuff, but the concept has been emblazoned in my memory that: whenever we get stressed or tense, our bodies enforce us to see with tunnel vision. I don't know if that's our survival instinct kicking in and trying to get us very focused or what. Just helping raise your level of awareness there.
See if leaving yourself enough time in the morning to go over your plan again helps, checking to be calm, collected before being on the edge of the seat zoomed into the monitor as soon as you open your charts. Or monitor what your state is generally before you start your days where you get trade plan execution issues.
I like how you collect your thoughts here and are generally pretty clear with what you're seeking. I'm sure you're a great trader too, but sometimes our execution just plain sucks, safe to say I can relate!
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Trade in the present: what do you see developing today?
Phew- my butchered post made some sense. I do this same thing as I'm sure everyone does but I wanted to make sure you caught it as you will not forget now. Can't tell you how many times my initial thoughts for the day play out to a tee but I let the chart get in my head.
No overnight trades. I was inches from pulling the trigger on a silver long but I realized that as my FOMO showing up again. Good thing too, as silver is down a handful of cents today.
Trade 1: Long 2144 & 2143.75, Stop Loss 2142.50 for -1.50/1.25
- I opened the long on the back of buying from the open. My only issue with this trade is that the execution was poor. I bought close to +2SD instead of VWAP which was available. Had I executed better I may have avoided a -2.75 loss.
Trade 2: Short 2142.5 & 2141 & 2141.75, Manual close for +0.25
- I suppose I ought to have reversed my original long instead of selling lower, but I am happy with this trade.
- I executed well by selling close to -1SD. Next time I should be a stickler for entries because of the way this trade turned out...
- I had a profit target at 2138. The low was 2138.25. If I had executed better my average might have been a tick or two higher, getting me an income scale out sooner.
Trade 3: Short VWAP, quick exit for -1.00.
- This was a quick tester to see if the market was going to respond downwards after touching vwap. I was short and wrong and thankfully closed it for a minimal loss.
Trade 4: Short 2147, stopped out around 2148.25.
- This was my first try to fade the range. Obviously, fading a move at the bottom of the range isn't going to work.... This was a stupid trade.
Trade 5: Short 2146.25 on average, exit for +0.25
- The trade was a winner but I managed it poorly. I entered all my size at once; I should have picked up on the chop/consolidation zone and looked to sell spikes and buy dips. I've never been a great range trader. It's definitely one of the things I need to practice to become more consistent.
Overall, my ideas were correct. I understood the market context (save for the VWAP short) during the times that I traded but I did not fully realize the profit potential from each of the trades. I ended the day down -4 points. Had I fully realized each trade's potential, I would have been significantly positive for the day.
Week Total: -725, -8.5 ticks in ES and -12 ticks in SI. (I'm not including my long term trades. I closed out short ES puts at a strike of 1600 this AM for a tidy $100).
-> Edit: The labeled 3 corresponds with Trade 4 and 4 corresponds with Trade 5. The real Trade 3 is unlabeled.
Criticism and "pointing out the obvious" will only help me better my trading.