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Overnight was range bound between 19807 and 19770 basically until Europe opened and we moved lower, eventually testing 19729 S. This was broken with a low of 19717 before rallying, we're now where we were during the Asian session.
Price is at a pretty key level as I'm writing this, just now testing the SR zone at 760, which is also a pivot for me at the moment. Bias is neutral at the moment as I'm waiting to see how the battle here will resolve.
I'll be sim trading today and all week. I will be looking to be just as aggressive with my entries here as I have been with the ES. I want to continue to review my psychological notes during the day, not just as an entry approaches. Given the nature of price movement on the YM, I believe stalking and entry will be more time sensitive than it was with the ES, so I'll need to maintain a high level of focus today.
11:30
Caught a few shorts between 10:20 and 11:00 and just tried another but scratched. Price at this point has really moved a long way and although I did take a short to catch continuation lower, I believe the most likely scenario is that we will need to move a little higher before we can move lower, perhaps to hit the current LOD.
The trades I did take I was pleased with. It's a little different reading price on the YM but not a lot (so far). Including the last trade I've made 3 trades today for +26.
End of Day
I'm needing to wrap up a bit early today. I'm mostly pleased with today. I didn't do a good job of reading my psychological reminders and this really showed up in the afternoon where I just sat back and missed some entries. This is sort of becoming a trend. I believe that part of it is that I've done well in the morning lately and I'm avoiding risk in the afternoon because I'm up points. While this might not be a bad thing for some people trading I don't see it that way for me. I'm too uncomfortable with risk as it is and I need to do things to get myself more comfortable. I feel I'm making progress in general but I'm not where I would like to be. Being able to take trades in locations that I like later in the day is something I need to continue to work on and it's something I need to be able to do in order to get my risk tolerance where I want it to be.
Trading the YM is definitely different than the ES. I'm not sure what to say beyond that really. It's 1 day so I don't know if I like it more or less but there's definitely a different feel; there's a lot more movement. I was a little behind at times today calculating RR values for trade locations but I believe this will improve quickly; it's just me adjusting to different numbers.
I'll do some post session review tonight and go back through the trade locations I identified. I also plan to do this in the morning tomorrow before I leave for work; I'd like to spend 20-30 minutes reviewing today again.
Volume spike at 7:35 this morning...not too sure what that is and I can't find anything on my economic news calendar about it. Overnight the YM seemed to be revolving around this 760 area that it was trapped in for much of the day yesterday. I've considered removing this area as SR but I'll leave it for today; if it's not behaving like an SR zone should then I'll remove it during the session.
Right now bias is bullish into the open; I want price to hold 760 for my bullish bias - if it breaks and holds below this area then I'll change bias to bearish, so this 760 area is important for me early. After that, I'll deal with the new information and go from there.
I did a lot of work post market on yesterday's action and it became a little more clear that I was behind and not seeing things as well as perhaps I could have. There were several more trades available to me that in hindsight were valid, though not all worked. As such, I'm going to shift my focus a little bit more today and really try to focus in on price movement and analysis. I'm going to let the getting into and out of trades I see go a little bit today; I'll still try to be aggressive but I'm really going to take time to read price and see what's happening, project price forward, etc. I feel I was doing that well on the ES but there's definitely a gap here on the YM. It's not huge but it's something that needs focus and attention. More screen time and more studying will get me there, I just need a little patience.
11:00
Wow, wild morning! 5 trades in the books and I'm managing #6 right now, long from 733. I took a peek at the ES and I only see 1 or maybe 2 trades that I could take there, so definitely a lot more going on with YM today. When I did some study over the weekend, I did find that YM provided more trades than the ES did based on my plan.
However, I realize that more trades is not necessarily better. In the case of this morning, it's very hectic. 4 of 5 trades have been scratched at break even, price just didn't move to my target like I thought it would. All trades were entered and managed exactly according to my plan and in hindsight both the entries and exits were good. I wasn't holding too long being hopeful and I didn't exit too soon out of fear; they were all in the Goldilocks zone.
I'm really glad I'm doing this. Even if I don't continue forward trading the YM it will have been good experience that I can take to the ES.
11:40
Posted a trade sequence from late this morning, 4 trades in total in the span of about 40 minutes. I'm beat. I'm going to head out for a few hours and hopefully come back for the afternoon session with some energy.
14:50
There was some pretty good action while I was out during lunchtime. I saw 2 trades in hindsight that were nice areas with good entry points. These both came after the rather large move down just before noon. Price hit an SR area I had marked and just stopped. There were 2 longs available here, 1 hitting the target price and the other exiting a bit lower but still profitable. I would like to think I'd have taken these trades had I been watching but I'll never know for sure.
I have tried several trades at the edges of this very small range we've been locked in. Each time price has approached 725-730 it has been met with supply. Not only is this the bottom of an SR zone I have marked it's also right at my current pivot, so I've been happy to sell as soon as I see weakness. Unfortunately, there has just been no follow through to the the SR zone lower at 703. It may seem foolish to keep selling the same spot, and maybe it is. But I'm just following price and applying what I see to my plan, so in a way I don't really have a choice but to trade it. I am focusing when price trades up into this area and I'm not just selling, I am looking for potential weakness to sell, so it's not just a blind entry.
End of Day
I'm generally not keen on trading the last 15-20 minutes of the day and since price is still locked in this death grip of a range I'm even more not keen today. I gave it one more try after my post above, selling 726. I was looking for a return to 703 but would have taken something 716 or lower (over 1R). I noted in my log that this was a higher risk entry as price had been making some higher lows heading into this test of R and price actually pushed up and over my pivot slightly. With my pivot being just below this SR zone, and with yet another stall, it was an entry that was valid per my plan. I noted the higher risk that I saw and was going to exit if the trade didn't work quickly. Price dipped a few points after entry then moved higher, testing the top of my SR zone. Price was quickly rejected from here but that's not what I was looking to happen so I took a break even exit and looked to evaluate further from the sidelines. This trade is posted below.
All said, I made 13, yes 13 trades today - holy crap! I made as many trades last Thursday on the ES but today felt like more for some reason. Today I was better prepared and better adjusted for what I would see on the YM. I found the entries very easy to spot today, much easier than I was spotting them on the ES. While I'm using the same trading timeframes it really felt much faster; I imagine this is how it might feel trading a 30 second chart on the ES or a low count tick chart or range chart or something. I do think adjusted to the perceived speed and this afternoon I was doing great at anticipating entries and nailing them. Things still seemed fast on the chart but slower in my head. I should also note that I experienced no hesitation this afternoon, which is out of the norm for me. I didn't pay a lot of attention to my psychological stuff today; it was not one of my goals to read my stuff every so often and I largely ignored it today. I was really dialed in and focused this afternoon though. This is a potential pattern that I'm seeing. When I'm very focused on watching price and analyzing and calculating entries and targets I'm not hesitating. Maybe it's a key for me to just hone my focus to the point where the other stuff kind of goes away.
I have added a few things to my trading logs, 1R price and did price hit 1R. I like the addition of the 1R price because as I'm stalking an entry I can tell where a good entry will be from a RR perspective. I can't believe I never added that before. I'm not really doing much with the "did price hit 1R" stuff yet but I figure it would be good to track for possible future reference. I only have this for the last 2 days, so 20 trades, but over that time 11 or 55% of my entries have hit 1R. I'll be interested to see how this develops over time.
After 2 days I'm liking the YM. I like the granularity that it provides. Entries and targets seem clearer to me. We've had some pretty low volatility these last couple of days, so comparisons to the ES on just these 2 days are not really fair. I might change my mind if we have a 400 point range day on the YM, that might be overload for me. I'm hopeful that Friday will provide the volatility that I'm needing to see and see whether or not that scares me away. I would love to see more volume on the YM - about double would be really nice. Maybe someone with really deep pockets could help me out there?
I'll do some post market review of my trades and analyze them with some hindsight. I can't imagine I'll find any missed entries as I was quite aggressive today.
Not much going on overnight and not much reaction to the 8:30 news events although all were positive, especially the Philly Fed Survey. Bias is sideways going into the open at this point (8:45) and I'll initially look for price to be more or less contained between 748 and 698. These are the ONH and ONL and also around SR zones that I have. The ONH is 7 points above the top of an SR zone between 731 and 741 while the ONL is right in the SR zone below at 692. I would shift to a bullish bias if price can hold above 741, in this case I believe the YM could challenge 760 and later 808 but that's a big could.
I suppose the obvious thing to expect today is a narrow range choppy kind of day like yesterday. I feel like the fuse has been lit and it's working it's way toward the powder keg. Maybe it will blow when the world officially has President Trump.
Not getting too caught up in the macro stuff, my goal today is to hit my entries and be aggressive, just as I was yesterday. The past few weeks I've had some really good trading periods during parts of the day and yesterday I had a really good morning and followed it up with a really good afternoon. Last week when I was trading the morning session well, I noticed and made note that I was really dialed in and focused. I felt that way again yesterday and it occurred to me that perhaps that's important for me, to apply as much focus as possible to price, my RR, anticipating and projecting future price, etc. Basically just focus on my trading plan and the charts 100% to the extreme. Doing this seems to block out the other stuff like fear, FOMO, anxiety. The light bulb went off yesterday afternoon regarding this and I did a lot of thinking last night about it and talked with my wife as well. I reflected back to my days playing sports and powerlifting and when I performed at my peak...it was when I was super focused on what I was doing and my mind sort of blocked everything else out.
I have some experience now with this feeling with trading. I'm going to keep going with it and see what happens. So, during periods where price is near a point of interest to me my goal is to apply 100% focus on my plan and my charts as I have been able to do over the last few weeks - that's it. I'm not going to do much with the psychological stuff today, I'm just going to try to really apply complete focus.
12:30
Taking a small break here so I'll be ready to go for the afternoon. I'm not leaving the office so I'll keep an eye on the charts and if something pops out I'll see if I can take a trade.
7 total trades so far today for +31. The attached sequence shows some good and bad. I got punished a bit in hindsight on trade #3 on the chart; I probably should have seen the impulse move to new lows, how it was bought and realized that the bulls were awake. To expect a retest was maybe wishful. Add to that the trade did not meet my RR criteria and I believe I have a mistake. I have passed on plenty of eventual winners because the RR was just not there, and I should have passed on this one too. I've moved on but I hope to keep the lesson.
I've been a lot busier at work today and I think that's thrown off my ability to really focus. I could tell because I felt different entering many of these trades today; I just felt more uneasy than I remember feeling yesterday. I believe that part of this might be me multitasking more today than yesterday. The good thing is that I just worked through it and kept my entries and management sound aside from the mistake. Also, while I've taken a lot of trades already today, I don't really feel worn out like I did yesterday even though overall I've been much busier with work and trading combined. Things are moving a lot slower today for me and I've done a really good job anticipating potential entries and calculating RR in advance so I can set an order before it's too late. I feel that I've had a good enough read on the market and I've taken my opportunities where I should have. Range is still pretty pathetic as we just seem to be grinding our way lower.
End of Day
A mixed bag today I suppose. I made what I believe is an error this morning selling where I should not have and I made another one just a bit ago, covering a short way too soon because of fear (the trade went on to hit target if managed according to plan). So I'm not pleased about these things at all.
I did have a profitable day despite these errors (the last one was an absolute 100% error). I've been pretty clean in terms of sticking to planned trades and managing according to plan up to today. I hope to really learn from these errors and commit to removing them going forward. While I still had a profitable day overall, there will be days where the errors will be much more painful.
I didn't have a great feel for bias today, especially after my error/stop loss. Part of the reason is that the YM was chopping around IN an SR zone that I had that's clearly invalid at this point. I made a nice trade (below) per plan but then the floor dropped out and I was pretty unsure what to do from there. I did end up taking a short based on weakness up to 670 (prior support now resistance) that would have worked if managed according to my plan. The speed of some of the moves today I think had me spooked a little as I felt a lot less sure about how I was seeing things today.
So at the end of the day I'm kind of back to where I was before, a long time ago in that I'm telling myself "just trade your plan" and yet I did not do that today. Even though I felt wobbly at times today, I still could see where I probably should be trading and those trades worked out for the most part. I suppose it's part of the learning process and as long as I take something out of my errors and my feeling of unease today it will have been productive.
In general terms, zooming out a bit from today, I feel that I have a very good grasp on my trading plan, and a very good grasp on why I should be looking for the trades that I am. I sort of feel like Neo from the Matrix in that scene at the end when he gets up from being shot by the agent. He gets up, gets shot at by all 3 agents and the bullets just stop in midair. Then does not see the agents themselves, he sees them as a part of the Matrix. I suppose I see remote trading in a similar way, I need to be able to see beyond that charts that are in front of me; I need to understand WHY the candles are doing what they are and what this means to people (and machines). Not all the time, but a lot of the time I believe I'm doing this - at least to an extent. I'm telling myself where people might be trapped, where stops might be, what is likely to happen if price can make it here or there and why those things might happen. A lot of the time it's automatic. It's this reason that I feel a sense of confidence now. Not confidence that I know what will happen, but confidence that I know what I should be doing and why. I can't say that I've been able to put things together in such a way in the past.
I have a good deal of post market review to complete tonight. While I'm pleased with a positive day in terms of points, I'm displeased with my execution today.
Below 19,568 there's a big drop to the next zone. I have not spent as much time looking at YM support/resistance as I have ES so there may be areas in between 568 and what I have as the next zone at 265. I'll take the weekend to put more time into this but for now I'll be really cautious if we break below 568 today.
Premarket
Bullish action overnight with price now above SR at 698. I have a bullish bias going into the open (for now) with a pivot at 698, a break and hold under 698 will create a change in bias for me.
I'm curious about the volatility surrounding Trump's speech today. The last time he spoke the markets went wild for a short period so I'm expecting the same today. I reviewed yesterday's trading several times now and I don't feel better about my execution; it was absolutely terrible. I am very determined to make this a blip and not a trend; I will not execute my trades as poorly today.
I've decided that this will be my last day on sim. It's possible I will go back to sim at some point but at the moment I have clarity in my plan, I see when I should be trading and I understand how I should be managing my trades. Additional time on sim will be of little benefit, I need to move on to the next battle at this point. I will also continue trading YM next week. I like that the prices are very exact compared to the ES. It now seems like ES prices are an approximation where YM prices are precise.
My schedule is empty at work today so it's possible I will be able to focus on trading for extended periods. It's possible that I was stretched too thin mentally yesterday and that caused some of my issues. Either way, I will try to focus and just remember to do my analysis, be ready for opportunities and trade according to my plan. If I can just do those things the end result will be good.
10:50
3 trades this morning so far for -16. At this point I am very happy with all aspects of each of the trades from entry to management. With just a bit of hindsight I was a bit too aggressive with 2 of them but I would have entered those a couple of minutes later anyway. I believe my analysis was sound and I believe I had a good premise on all 3 trades, the market just wasn't ready to cooperate and that's fine.
I will analyze these trades along with the rest of the trades I make during my post market review, perhaps during that time with hindsight I will discover something I missed. But I can say with little doubt that these were not error trades. Not all trades will work out and not all sequences will be profitable. But in this sequence the losses were small (as were the potential losses). 1 winning trade will completely reverse my P/L for the day. I will continue to look for good spots to trade and will stay alert and focused for opportunities. I will be cautious starting at 11:30 and remain so until after Trump makes his speech.
12:50
Not as crazy as I thought it would be. No good spots to enter a trade but I'm sure there will be opportunity into the afternoon.
End of Day
Man, I got rekt this afternoon. I have not done any analysis/review at this point but from what I can see I was picking logical locations and getting good entry but the trades were just not going my way. Really it came down to 3 trades after 14:00 trying to short. I stopped out on 2 in a row, full stops, and my rule is that if that happens to just stop trading that particular move, just wait for another swing high/low and go back and take a fresh look at price, context, etc. I was early on both of the shorts; I took them at logical locations I was just too aggressive (in hindsight). Then when price failed higher I was really unable to possibly trade there. Maybe I would not have anyway but I was early on 2 shorts then missed the real short up higher. I again took a short just after 15:40 looking for a move down. I sold right at an area of supply, got triggered into the trade by a few points then price just quickly pushed higher. These 3 losses turned my day from slightly profitable to not profitable.
I suppose the positive I can take away was that I was not hesitant at all on these trades. I did miss 1 trade today that I should have taken, but I ended up getting into 90% of the trades that I saw real time. I had fully planned on starting live trading next week but at this point, my mindset is to get 1 more week on sim. I don't know if it's a great idea to go live after having taken a small beating today. While I realize these things will happen and it does not mean that I did something wrong, that it's really just all part of the deal I signed up for, I still feel pretty crappy.
I have some post market review to do of today and a weekly review to conduct over the weekend. I'll be analyzing my decisions for sentiment and individual trades to see if there were errors and where there is room for improvement. Part of me is glad this happened today so I can deal with it now rather than it just being a nice day where most of my trades were working then having to face this kind of situation when I've got real money on the line.
No a lot to speak of overnight. Bias is bullish going into the open as long as 698 holds.
I did a lot of work over the weekend reviewing last weeks trades and potential trades. With so many possible entries on Friday I felt like I probably missed a lot of entries from Tuesday through Thursday. Upon review, this was not the case.
I'm again going to try to be as focused as possible today and get into my trades as I see good entries. I need to develop more consistency following my plan and taking entries as they develop without hesitation. It seems that I can do this better when I'm more focused.
11:00
Not much to speak of in terms of activity for me today. I did take a long just after the open but scratched at break even. Bias is bearish at the moment but the impulse move lower just after 10:30 has the potential for a bottom for today, so I'm not keen on shorting at the moment. The YM has put in a range that's only just under the 14 day average and the range has expanded after the open to put it into the normal category for me. If we chop around for the rest of the day I won't be surprised.
Price is now in the low 700's which should be close to a supply level, and is also right in an SR zone for me. I'm not in a spot to go long against my bias and I don't like the idea of selling here given the potential bottom so I'm just watching from here to see if price makes a larger move one way or the other. If the YM could get to 720-725 I would be more interested in a short in that area if there's a logical entry.
12:10
Just wrapped up a successful short trade. I was pleased with my patience, waiting for price to stall in an area of supply and not jumping in too soon. I was also pleased with my recognition of the price action and potential reversal at this area. I was aggressive with my entry as I should be also - no hesitation. The only thing I could have possibly done better would be to identify a better target. However, my target still provided 1.2R so I'm pleased with that. If at some point I am trading multiple contracts I may be able to identify multiple targets but that's in the future. For now, I'm pleased with the trade.
Currently YM is hovering just above an SR zone I have marked. Price was unable to break this zone on the first attack and price was fairly strong coming off of it. I'm leaning toward this zone holding if price approaches in soon and I'll be looking for a possible long entry. There also appears to be plenty of supply overhead around 700 so a weak approach or a stall in this area could also set up a short entry.
13:00
Missed getting into the long trade I referenced just above; I just missed it. I logged it in my trades as a missed trade; it hit target for +15, so there's another missed opportunity. I did take a short based on resistance around 700, I exited for -5, less than a full stop as price moved up then back down but not to my entry. I thought it was best to exit when I could rather than hope for a recovery to break even and risk a full stop.
Right now bias is sideways. I'm expecting price to trade between 710 and 659 until proven otherwise.
15:00
Tried to buy a couple of pullbacks after 13:30 and neither worked out. Both entries I feel were good and made sense based on what I'm looking for. After these two I'm +5 today on all trades but -10 on the ones that I caught, since I missed a trade that hit for +15.
End of Day
I have been looking for price to test lower, either at 710 or higher at 742-748 to consider a trade. Price did move lower to test near 710 but I could not find a reason to go long there. Price does seem like it could test the 742-748 area into the close but I don't like trading after 15:30 so I'll let this one pass.
No trades since the last update so my trading day ends two ways. First, considering ALL entries I have 7 trades for +5. Considering MY entries I have 5 trades for -10. I missed two entries, one a break even and that other one for +15. The one I missed for break even was unavoidable but I should have caught the other that hit for +15; I was sitting at my desk and could have been focused.
End of Day II
I paused for about an hour to review my trades for today and look for missed opportunities; defining a "perfect" day. I see two spots where I could have placed a trade for profit that I didn't see at the time. I have made notes of these and will review them along with the entire day later this evening.
Of of these missed opportunities was after I believed the YM could have put in a LOD after the impulse move down at 10:30. While price was bullish off this test, momentum slowed into my SR zone. Price eventually tested higher and failed, setting up a nice short trigger. I was too locked into the possibility of there being a LOD that I really just looked past this. While it's good that I recognized the impulse move down, and it's good that I didn't jump to enter short just after, I should have been more aware of what price was doing and conducting analysis to determine if my theory was correct. Had I been doing this ongoing analysis, I would have seen that price, though initially bullish, had lost strength. The move into SR was weak, bias was bearish and I should have seen the short opportunity. This was a missed +18.
The second potential opportunity was near the close as price re-tested the SR zone around 710. Price made a higher low and actually failed to reach the area that I had defined as SR. This entry is much more difficult to see; I did notice it in review but it also didn't jump out at me. Given where I am, I made a note of it but I'm okay with not seeing this one for now. This trade would have been profitable.
I am not displeased about my performance today. Based on the trades I saw in real time, I hit 5/6 for 83%. The one that I missed was not out of hesitation or fear, I just wasn't focused when I could have been and should have been. Price at this time was crawling into an area of interest for me and I really should have been watching more closely. This is something I've had problems with but I am getting better.
I don't like the disparity between my P/L and both my all trades P/L and the "perfect" P/L. However, I'm not going to focus too much on this and just continue to focus on process. I have things that I need to improve process and focus wise. If I'm able to be better in these areas then the P/L will follow.
Not much in the way of movement overnight. Bias is neutral going into the open; I will not trade until test R above or S below.
I did another review of Monday trading last night and saw a few others areas where I could have read price better. There was an opportunity to identify some weakness in the move up just off the open yesterday. I took a long trade in this area, which is fine, but I also could have reversed once weakness was confirmed. I exited my long trade at break even but did not reverse to a short. Looking at it now, reversing to a short would have been the better option.
Today I'm going to try to place more emphasis on analyzing information from multiple timeframes to determine strength and weakness and anticipate future price. We will see if I can do this and continue to identify most of the possible trade entry locations. However, I believe my analysis of current price to understand what the market is doing and what it may do is more important than individual trades. It's possible that I've put too much into identifying trade locations at the expense of continuing to improve my price analysis.
I reached a point on the ES where I felt fairly comfortable reading and analyzing price. Given my P/L the first few days of trading YM, I assumed that I was reading and analyzing price equally as well but it's clear that I still have a way to go with the YM before I'm at the point where I was with the ES. Not saying I was a pro with the ES, but I believe I was ahead versus where I am now with YM. I believe I can get better at reading price with the YM, it's just going to take focus and it's going to take me following my process with discipline.
10:45
3 trades off the open for +12 total. I was focused first on price analysis then looking for trade locations. Right now I think I performed well in both areas but I'll conduct review later and see if I agree in hindsight.
Range has been really tight so far this morning. I'm now looking for a trade off of SR between 748 and 758 to move up to 771 - 777. I will continue to try to conduct bar by bar price analysis before I look for potential trade opportunities.
11:38
Nice push higher just after 11:00 but there's been no follow through. Initially I was looking to buy a pullback but this idea came and went. Price has stalled right at the top of my SR zone, so I'm wondering if I should treat this as the area is broken and holding or as the area has failed and I should fade.
At this point I would still prefer to buy a pullback, but won't do so until we get something toward 770 or so. If price pushes up past 793 (current HOD) I'll be watching for supply. If higher prices are quickly rejected I will be looking to sell. My target on such a trade would be back to the current levels around 785-790, so I could see it being difficult to get 1R out of such a trade.
My main focus will continue to be ongoing analysis. At this point, there's not a lot of information to do anything with as there's no conviction in either direction.
12:30
Difficult day to trade for me thus far. Bias is bullish but price is moving up in spurts at this point and I've not had a reason to buy before the spurts. Price is now holding above my SR zone at 808 - 819. Similar to an hour ago, my preference is to look for a long entry. There was a shallow pullback that I could have bought but I'm looking for something deeper. At this point my only short would be at the next SR zone higher if price were to get there and show weakness.
I've only seen 3 trades today, though I could have been in 4 - so a little lighter than what I've seen lately but understandable considering the action. I have looked at the ES off and on today since the YM hasn't been moving too much; really nothing going on there either.
13:15
Odd day, I guess we're in for a trend day. I have looked for shorts around my SR zones but nothing has been there. I have also looked for spots to buy but the pullbacks have not been deep enough to justify a trade from an RR perspective. This mainly has to do with my target and I've not had the expectation that price will continue to make new highs, so my target is the current high. While I'm seeing the bullish strength in spots, price has been respecting my SR zones, so when price stalls in or near a zone I am skeptical of the overall strength of the move.
I suppose 14:00 to 14:30 could bring a change in trend so I'll keep an eye on things but I don't anticipate making any trades until after this time.
14:10
Price finally stalled. I am not bearish just yet; I am really looking for a multiple swing pullback to buy, something like this. 855 to 851 looks like a good area for support so I'll be watching this area closely if price pulls back there.
15:05
Got the trade I was looking for, a multiple swing pullback stalling around 850. Unfortunately there was not the demand to drive prices higher. I figured there would be stops above 871 that would carry my trade to target but price was unable to reach that point so I scratched it at break even. I'm pleased with my recognition of that area and execution of the trade.
End of Day/15:30
I need to wrap up early today so I'm shutting it down now. Price at this time is getting pretty close to my pivot area which is also a good level of support. I'll be curious to see if this area holds (842). I don't care to trade after 15:30 so I'd be avoiding this either way.
I hit 100% of my entries today, so I'm pleased about that. I believe I stayed focused during the important times today and I did well analyzing first and looking for trade opportunities second. There were a lot of trades that I passed on today because they did not meet my RR requirement. For me, today was a difficult day to trade after the open. I was fairly comfortable trading around the open as far as me looking at price and interpreting it in such a way that I could make a plan. However, after the push higher just after 11:00 it became difficult. Price basically kept pushing up to and through the next level higher in 4-6 minutes, traded sideways for a period then repeated the process. From a range and range expansion standpoint the YM is way overextended and was so all afternoon. However, from a price action standpoint there was no sign of weakness for most of the afternoon. At 15:03 there was a push up into my SR at 878 with a hard rejection of price. I considered shorting at that point but I could not get a trade over 1R based on a logical target so I could not do anything. A trade at this point with a target of the next SR zone lower would have hit but I could not have had that expectation at the time of the entry, my target needed to be much less aggressive based on the chart.
I did look at the ES several times today and it looks like a new ATH. I poked around to look for possible trades there but I didn't really see much.
I'm also happy about my reaction to getting stopped out on my 2nd trade this morning. I did have a chance to short even earlier than this but is was not close enough to the edge of my SR area so I passed, which was a good decision. The trade that I stopped out on was right at the edge, though not as deep into the zone as my 1st trade that was a winner. The trade was aggressive but having looked at that entire sequence several times today I don't see an error; I just happened to be a little early but there's no way to know that at the time. Taking a loss here could have made me nervous or hesitant but I was right on the next stall and shorted without hesitation. That trade didn't hit my profit target and didn't show the bearish strength I was looking for so I exited at 1R. I feel I entered well and managed the trade well.
I'll do my usual post market analysis later and see if I missed some things or misread strength and weakness at some point. As I type this, I can say that this was my best day trading of the year. Not in terms of P/L but in terms of reading the market, understanding context, entering trades and managing them properly. So I end the day hitting 4/4 trades for +12 P/L.
YM is sitting in ATH range premarket. I don't have a frame of reference for resistance above here aside from the magical 20K. Bias is bullish into the open. I'll trade my plan but there will be no shorting SR unless there's a solid break below 922.
My review of Tuesday trading did not uncover anything. I don't see where I missed any potential trades. There were some spots where I can see where I would like to get long but there was really no room. The only thing I can see improvement on would be to use a larger target when the market is trending as it was. I believe picking accurate targets is much better than picking either aggressive or conservative targets. I generally lean conservative with my targeting and did so yesterday. However, even after review, the way price was acting didn't really give me confidence that a target of the next higher SR zone was reasonable.
Today I'm going to again really try to focus on bar by bar analysis of price and put it into the context of the overall market. Today may well be difficult as it appears the YM may reach for 20K once again. The good news is that we are at the top of this range that's confined price since early December. I would imagine that a break of the range will bring in some range expansion, so that should be interesting. Anyway, analysis first, search for trade locations second, and don't hesitate.
11:00
YM hit 20K so that's out of the way. I have not traded today as this really isn't action that I want to be a part of with no real upper frame of reference. There was the possibility of buying a pullback just after the open near my SR zone but I was looking for price to pull back a little deeper before buying and that never came.
I'll likely just watch today and draw a new SR area tonight and see what happens tomorrow.
End of Day
Nothing much to trade today, no pullbacks worth jumping on.
YM screaming higher again. I have a ton of meetings today at work and I'll be busy enough until about 15:00 to not do more than just glance at the markets, certainly not enough time to consider trading. This is fine because again, I have no interest in trading at all time highs.
End of Day
I've been checking out currency pairs today as the YM was not doing much and I was busy anyway. Same idea in terms of trading price action within a higher timeframe structure. Structure is structure and price action is price action. I also opened up a demo account with FXCM. I'll try this out tomorrow some and see how I like it. I have clicked around a little and while dealing with spreads is annoying, trading micro lots is not. Also, when I sim with ES or YM I do so on paper. I track the DOM to get real fills but it's not the same as actually clicking on something. The EURUSD is the most liquid and has the lowest spread, so I like that one. I'm going to go through many pairs tonight and check them out. I'd like to at least monitor 2 or 3 pairs, if not to trade during the day then to study post market in addition to what I'm trading. I believe increasing my screen time will be helpful.
Didn't do much trading today. I checked out some FX pairs and clicked around there. For futures I have been using longer timeframes when looking for SR zones and focusing on the 3-minute and 1-minute for trading. My trades don't last very long at all, some as short as 3-4 minutes.
I learned today that those timeframes will get me killed trading FX; there's just no way to make that productive with the spreads. Maybe it's possible with the EURUSD...maybe. Even then, the 1.5 pip spread would be a huge disadvantage. So, if I'm going to look at FX at all it would need to be a much longer timeframe with larger targets and larger stops. I don't know that looking at anything under 5 minutes would work well at all, at least not for me.
Today I watched the EURUSD, GBPCHF and AUDNZD. I purposely picked pairs that were all non correlated. I don't want to look at EURUSD and USDCAD for example, because I figure one chart will basically be just the inverse of the other. And I don't care to include JPY since the decimal format is different; that will jack up any spreadsheet I would use.
I'll do some more looking over the weekend at FX, but I won't be focusing on those primarily. This week was pretty crappy for trading the YM anyway so I'm okay with wasting a few days exploring FX. I don't think it would hurt to keep an eye on these during the day or review them each night via market replay. The movement of them does not seem to be a whole lot different than YM or ES.
So, that's my project for the weekend. I'll review the YM week and the trades I didn't make and dive into a few currency pairs and see what I can make of them. The more I study using the same principles the faster I should be able to apply those principles on a more consistent basis.
Bias on YM is bearish heading into the open. I have some good SR levels above and below so I feel pretty good about getting back to trading YM, at least for today. FOMC week so we might be quiet today and tomorrow. I'm going to really try to focus on my charts today and hit my entries and manage them according to plan.
I also did some more research on FX over the weekend and I'm going to look at a few pairs today but focus on a much higher timeframe for trading these. I'm also not going to be able to manage them as tight as I do YM, so once I place a trade it will have a lot more room to move up and down. I have a plan for these and I'd like to also give them a try to see how I like trading them. I also believe this will give me a little more screen time so it won't hurt. My main focus will be on YM, I don't want to be missing trades because I'm looking at a currency pair.
13:30
Pretty active day so far and I've been able to balance work and trading pretty well. I was pretty frazzled this morning trying to configure my charts, keep an eye on everything and adjust to a new trading platform (I have ditched TT in favor of trading straight from Tradingview as there are a lot of advantages to this including reduced costs). This caused me to miss a good and logical entry on the YM but after a couple of hours I was more settled in.
I did make an error trade on the YM that ended up stopping out. I realized the error not long after I stopped out after looking at it again. This was during the period where I was unsettled getting used all of the new things I had going on. 1 change would have been fine but I was dealing with 2 and I think this was just too much distraction.
At this point I'm pleased with my trading though even with the error. I'm currently -8 on the YM and +35 pips on my FX trades. I'm still really focusing on YM and making that a priority.
End of Day
The YM is messing with me today and it's after the time I like to place trades there anyway so I'm wrapping it up. I made a lot of YM trades today - 10 in total. 1 was a mistake and I believe I missed 2 others, though I'll go back through in my review to see what I did right and wrong. Total P/L was -8 points today. I believe I executed well today though. I missed a few trades in the morning but I had a lot of things going on, so I'm giving myself that excuse. Outside of that, I was on top of them; no issues with entry or trade management. I'm very please about this. I also had a pretty good read on the YM today; my bias analysis was really good. By 11:40 I'd switched my bias to bullish, so I was not a perma bear today and I allowed price to tell me what my bias should be. Unfortunately, price was pretty choppy this afternoon and that made for difficult trading; I scratched most of my trades during this time.
I was pretty active with currency trades as well; 6 trades in all for +38 pips. I am monitoring 4 pairs and trading a higher timeframe; my lowest TF chart is 10 minutes. Maybe it's just the change of pace but I really liked this zoomed out way of trading. I wasn't micro managing my positions, I just put the trade on with a stop and target and checked on it every now and then. My plan is to move my stop to BE once the trade hits 1R but not before unless it's been over an hour and my analysis says that I no longer want to be in the trade. I liked the fact that I could study the charts for a longer time and not feel pressured to make a quick decision; I could take as much time as I wanted to read price and make a decision. I'll keep at it this week and then figure out what to do next over the weekend.
I have quite a bit of homework to do tonight, going through many more charts than I have been. I'm up for it though and excited about the possibility of learning a little more.
