Weekly price action is still bullish but daily price action was bearish on Friday. I am trying to remind me of the Current winner in the market and know who was in control prior to me starting day-trading.

I will probably clip a star on the left upper corner of my monitor for weekly winner and the right corner for daily winner. This habit may reduce my counter-trend trading.

I couldn't shake off my bearish bias today and initiate a short at 2080.

Reasoning - I Expected friday's vPOC/VAH to provide resistance and friday's high to hold. Relative volume is still fairly low suggesting no participation from OTF and hence range day likely. Hence fading with the expectation of revisit to overnight low..

However, I was pre-mature b'cas internals did NOT show weakness at the time of my entry. e.g TICK was still hugging zero but staying +ve with no buying exhaustion and net volume was creeping up.

If I had waited for 2083, when I noticed weakness in internals, my stop would have been at a safer location and above the noise and local stop hunting above last week's high. Sellers hadn't shown up yet and hence I could be stopped out soon. However, range day is still a possibility unless there is a significant pick up in volume.

You are your own worst enemy...

Agree. That's why I try to reduce my own influence in my trade execution.

I had 2 choices today but opted for the 3rd less profitable strategy.

1. I had bullish bias on Friday. Hence I could have initiated long at open as Internals were mildly positive and hunted the stops above friday's value high.

2. I could have waited for weakness to appear and then shorted friday's value high. (which is possibly happening at 11.35 now CT with price at 2086)

3. Instead I was impatient and settled for a low probability and high risk location and paid the price.

I am ok with that, currently, b'cas I know that I made a risky bet, what my better options are and what I could have done differently.

I think I have moved on from the 'lack of awareness' stage to 'mindful of my idiocy' stage. The next step is 'placing smarter bets' stage. I aim to reach that in weeks not years. However, if I keep doing the same mistake then there is no bigger fool here.

To use your medical analogy, before you can make a diagnosis you need more than a cursory knowledge of medicine. The same is true of formulating a thesis about the market. If you don't have a thorough knowledge of the market, you are simply going to be making guesses based on some misguided bias.

I appreciate your effort to guide me towards success.

I have realised that I have to increase my effort and commitment too.

Instead of using my day-job and time restriction as an excuse to pick bad locations, I have decided to dive in full time, albeit for a small period of 2 months. Luckily, my personal and job situation allows me to do that from mid November. i.e 2 weeks from now. I will be as transparent as possible and will take any criticism, from successful and/or well respected traders, in a positive spirit.

Even if I fail at the end of 2 months, I will hopefully learn more about my abilities and personality and then decide on my suitability to become a trader. Even if the next 2 months become a disaster, I will likely continue with part time trading again for few more months to try and rectify my deficits and carry on with my regular job for another 6 to 8 months before going full time from October 2016.

I will likely close this thread in the next week or so as it won't be Get up and leave but rather active monitoring and management of my trades

I appreciate your effort to guide me towards success.

I have realised that I have to increase my effort and commitment too.

Instead of using my day-job and time restriction as an excuse to pick bad locations, I have decided to dive in full time, albeit for a small period of 2 months. Luckily, my personal and job situation allows me to do that from mid November. i.e 2 weeks from now. I will be as transparent as possible and will take any criticism, from successful and/or well respected traders, in a positive spirit.

Even if I fail at the end of 2 months, I will hopefully learn more about my abilities and personality and then decide on my suitability to become a trader. Even if the next 2 months become a disaster, I will likely continue with part time trading again for few more months to try and rectify my deficits and carry on with my regular job for another 6 to 8 months before going full time from October 2016.

I will likely close this thread in the next week or so as it won't be Get up and leave but rather active monitoring and management of my trades

That's good news and I am happy for you as you are taking a step closer to your goal but I am confused though, you want to be a day trader or swing trader? more screen time will definitely help in understanding day to day nuances of market but I feel it will also add to the confusion what I mean is as @tigertrader mentioned in previous post we are going to make more and more guesses based on misguided bias....Last few weeks I missed a huge rally because I was dwelling in what happened in previous 3 weeks, clearly market has changed in last three weeks but I am not sure how new traders will recognize these changes one we able to recognize this we should be able to control misguided bias effectively....for example in one of not so recent post's @tigertrader mentioned market has been stretched so much after moving up mere some 40-60 points so he is short but now he doesn't think it's not stretched enough so we have to find how can we learn these things..

you want to be a day trader or swing trader?