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I should not complain too much about a positive day, +$48 for the day, but I left a lot of ticks on the table due to exiting too early.
I felt there would be support at 17600, because it's a round number, and that level acted as resistance last Friday. Entered at 17601, with a 7 tick stop, the trade went 14 ticks in my favor and I moved my stop up to breakeven+1, then +3. Price eventually pulled back to 17600 even before going 17634. Something to be said for leaving the stop where it is until either your stop or your target is hit.
Same thing happened on my other trade. I was waiting for price to trade up to settlement, and waited for a signal to go short. I was a bit late in my entry, but it did go in my direction, before bouncing. I missed out on 20+ ticks due to exiting too early with a small gain.
I am not that disappointed, but it's tough to know that I was correct in direction, but missed out due to poor execution.
Right now, I have a fear that if I leave my stop alone on the next trade, I will have a 15 tick winner turn into a 10 tick loss. But I guess that will happen sometimes, you just hope the 20 tick and 30 tick winners you DO get balance out the trades where a small winner turns into a loss.
No trades taken today, I woke up late today and YM was already up +100 points. I am very wary of buying when a market is already up so much, yet at the same time, I do not want to fade what might end up being just a trending day.
In hindsight there were a couple of places I could have went long and if not held for the entire day, at least taken 20 ticks.
However, I am happy that I did not try to force any trades. This chart shows some areas I could have entered, basically pullbacks to the VWAP.
Listening to John Hoagland's class today in the TST Squawk Radio room, there was a question about how to tell whether the day will be a range day or a trend day. John said if the market opens up outside of value, there is a possibility the day will be a trend day. A market that opens inside of value means that it is in balance, and is more likely to be range bound. I will try to keep this in mind for the future.
I started out with a loss because my stop was too tight, then followed up with 2 decent trades, although I had to exit the 2nd one early (had to get to work).
I got a bit mad that I exited my 2nd trade so early because YM blew past S1 and just kept going. I was thinking of going long around 17700, which looked like a support level.
My trade did NOT work out but I canceled my stop and doubled down on my entry, TWICE.
This is a really bad mistake, and even though it somewhat worked out, I am disappointed I did this, because I know how devastating this can be to an account.
This ended up being a trending day, even though the market started out in balance. The big spike up was due to the EIA report coming out, and I was happy to get 28 ticks on my first short, even though I missed the second leg down. I should stop trading my forex account at the same time I am trading the combine, I can't focus on both at the same time.
+$241. The downtrend continues, and the smart move would be to short at the high of day and hold on. However, that is not really my style, as I like to take profits as they become available provided they are around 2-3 times the size of my stop.
For the 2nd straight day, I tried to pick a bottom and it didn't work out. The difference was I knew how much I wanted to wait before my 2nd entry, which allowed my to exit with a profit without too much grief.
First trade was waiting for a bounce and confirmation this would be a higher low. Not as good as getting in at the high of value, but I looking at the price action, I was feeling confident that price would continue lower as it has the whole week.
This is becoming a pattern, where there is a huge movement in the afternoon, and rather than get on that train and riding it, I decide to pick a bottom. Again it worked out, but it's stressful and risky.
My goal for the next trading session is to avoid taking a counter-trend trade in the afternoon.
Even though I ended up positive $153 on the day, I can't help being a bit disappointed at my trading.
I failed my goal for the day which was not to take a counter-trend trade, especially in the afternoon session. Not only did I take one, I took THREE. Yet they were all winners, and two had the potential of nabbing about 20 ticks or more.
Even though I kept telling myself to look for a low-risk entry to go long, I couldn't pull the trigger after the market was already 100 pts up for the day (I opened my platform at 9:50am CST).
Ugh. I didn't trade that well, but I still had a positive day, and was able to limit my trades to only 3 for the day, so I don't want to beat myself up too much.
First, I just want to say I'm enjoying your journal. Secondly, I'm a very inexperienced trader, so I'm really not in the position to offer an in-depth critique of your trades. However, I do have a background in psychology, and I would caution you from letting the day's positive outcome (in terms of P&L) negate the impact of the mistakes you made. Having a positive outcome despite unwanted behavior can be detrimental in the long term since it reinforces bad habits, and as a result makes it harder to become disciplined.
I hope I'm not sounding too critical. Quite frankly, the fact that you recognize when you make errors puts you far ahead of many out there. I just wanted to post in hopes that the lessons you learned from today's mistakes aren't obscured by the day's positive outcome.
Thanks for your comment! It's great to get feedback from the community, positive or negative, that's how we learn. Of course, you are right that I shouldn't let P&L dictate whether the day was a success or not. I am still waiting for the day I have a small loss on the day and consider it a success because I traded according to my plan. I always think I can turn a small losing day into a winning with "just one more trade" which is dangerous.
I will reflect more on what happened today, trying to let what I learned sink in. I guess I was trying to look on the bright side. In the past on these kinds of days, I would look for any hint of a reversal and go short. If that didn't work I would wait two minutes for the next red candle and go short again! The next thing I knew, I was down huge and trying to revenge trade to get my P&L back to green. The scary thing is, that kind of day is can happen at any time if I'm not careful.
Very poor entries today, and doubling or tripling down on those entries allowed me have a positive day. But not very happy with buying the lows in the morning, and then trying to pick a bottom in the afternoon.
