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SoftSoap's NQ Journey - from SoftSoap to SoftGold


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SoftSoap's NQ Journey - from SoftSoap to SoftGold

  #121 (permalink)
 
SoftSoap's Avatar
 SoftSoap 
Canada
 
Experience: Beginner
Platform: NinjaTrader
Broker: InteractiveBrokers
Trading: NQ
Posts: 594 since Aug 2015
Thanks Given: 347
Thanks Received: 1,227

September is finally over, what a month. It has been an emotional roller coaster and a broken roller coaster that just goes down P&L wise

September Journal Contest
First of all, I want to thank everybody who voted for me in the journal contest. With your votes I was able to clinch first place and I am now the proud owner of a life-time NinjaTrader license. Thank you @NinjaTraderand @Big Mike!



Also congratulations to @bobwestand @citikotwho won 2nd and 3rd place, make sure to check out their journals as well!

A bit of an intro to my End of Month review

I feel that a higher level review of your numbers on a regular basis (such as monthly) is crucial to trading success. This allows you to see things from a different level than you would see trade by trade. This is also where the work from all the data-entry that traders do on a daily basis pays off!

Interpreting data is sometimes easy and other times can be more complicated. The calculations shouldn’t ever change, but from time to time the information you choose to focus on should. The truth is that data can be sliced into different ways, and having various perspectives will help you see the big picture. It also helps keep things interesting for someone like myself. But you need to be careful to ensure that you aren't showing the data in a way that hides your pitfalls, because honestly that will only hinder you.

I've gotten used to sharing my losses and failures with FIO so that's good, specially because I had lots of those last month. But what can you expect from a new trader who has so much to learn?


However that doesn't make sharing this post publicly any easier. I'm not proud of my numbers this time around, but they are what they are, and I am where I am. I won't improve if I don't face the reality of these numbers head on.

The stats this time around are so much more difficult to read, simply because I pretty much failed in every way haha so it’s less “this is good so keep doing it, this is bad so stop doing it”, and more “this is worse than this but not as bad as that, so stop that altogether and do less of this” lol.

Making things even more difficult to read number wise, I took a break in the middle of the month and I traded much differently after I came back than I did before. Yes it was only a 5 day break but honestly the trading was very different, I’ll show a comparison after.

Overall stats


  • First of all, ROI is down, and almost at my monthly limit of 12%, yikes! This isn’t good. Obviously at this rate it’ll only be a couple of months before I blow up an account. A trend that needs to be reversed harder than the Brexit reversal. The same can be said about expectancy.
  • Win% is a big indicator as to why my ROI is down so much. I lost 4/5 every trades I took last month. Not good.
  • Payoff ratio dropped, but it’s still at a level I’m comfortable with, anything above 1.5 is good with me
  • My Drawdowns were ~double for max and average, this has a big psychological impact on me as it’s in the back of my mind the whole time. I have to bring it back to a more reasonable number
  • # of trades is the only thing that has improved this month. I took 89, yes 89 less trades than last month. And while I didn’t try to trade for 5 days, it’s still a huge improvement from the month prior. This is a very good sign that I’m able to deal with FOMO a lot more, however I also missed out on a lot of winning trades. I’ll talk about that later on though.

While the numbers suck, I didn't expect to finish great this month after I had to take a break because I was doing so bad.It'd be fooling for me to come back 5 days later and expect a 180 turn with huge profits, but I do feel like I've made some progress.

Some stats before and after my psychology break
I thought I'd compare just a few numbers before and after my break to see how my psychology break had an impact on my trading. For those who didn't know, I stopped trading for 5 days to focus on my psychology, specifically my emotional and FOMO trades, among other things of course. It wasn't a vacation, it was a shift in focus entirely to psychology. Reading books, doing root cause analysis on certain psychological traits, thinking about how to close the gaps, looking at my stats, etc. Let's see those numbers.



My numbers are not yet profitable, as I still lost money when I came back, but not nearly as much.

Before leaving I traded 9 days, after coming back I traded 8 days so timeframe is very similar. However, I took 36 less trades when I came back, and lost an average of 0.2% a day compared to 1% a day before my break.

In all fairness there were some days when I took 0 trades because none of my setups were hit, but I was still trading. The difference is that I told myself I wasn't actively going to trade, I was just going to sit and let the market come to me. Sounds like a good counter to FOMO right?

Initial signs show that my break was beneficial in terms of fighting FOMO and emotional trades, while that hasn't paid up $ wise yet, it is a sign of long-term growth and I'm very happy with that.


Let's move on

Direction of trade



Surprisingly I did decent with trend, but awful counter-trend. I killed it with counter-trend the month before so I’m actually quite surprised about that. This should tell me to never trade against the trend as I only won those 15% of the time, but that's the bulk of my methodology. I'm not going to change my entire methodology over 1 bad month of results, but this is something to note because if it keeps happening I might have to do that.

Decision type



Oh wow, this one shocked me the most. A positive note is that my rational trades now make up the most of my trading, but they also had the worst expectancy
Emotional trades had the lowest win % (no surprise), but the payoff ratio was massive at 4.2, so when I took emotional trades I was aiming for home runs, and sometimes got them.
I'm not sure how to interpret this to be honest and it makes me want to change something, but I just don't know what...
I will wait and see what next month's numbers are, I'm hoping this is an anomaly

Time of Day



Well this tells me I should only trade at 2PM and Overnight
Another chart that is difficult to read because everything is red. However, I am still taking quite a bit of trades around the open, and lunch time trades are losing me the most. I told myself last time I was going to be cautious during the open and take a break from 12-14 EST, I have not done this as well as I should.

Trading Errors

Probably my favorite stats to look at!


First off, FOMO is no longer at the top of the error list, so woohoo. My top 3 errors make up 75% of my losses, so this needs to be the focus so I can get the best return on my time.

I want to compare this to last month's errors though so here's another chart



I won't go through every category, just the top 3 changes
  1. Okay so FOMO decreased significantly, another data point that shows I've improved in this
  2. Bad read has gone up, which isn't ideal but this should be the highest category. Losing a trade because I read the market wrong should always be my #1 error, this is me just flat out being wrong
  3. I didn't lose any money from chasing a trade, great!

However, there are some things that the numbers above don't show, but that I can see thanks to my journal on FIO combined with my written journal.

What do these numbers not show?
  • They do not show the setups that I wanted to take, but consciously chose to avoid due to deliberate thinking (post break). Most of these setups (I think all but 1) would've been losses. That would've added to the negative ROI directly, and might've indirectly added more to it by triggering revenge trading
  • It also does not include the trades that I was 0 – 6 ticks away from getting filled that would’ve been won. Since after my break, there were 6 of these occasions last month where I came very close to entering the trade, but it reversed just before my limit order
  • They do not show the losses and the potential profit that happened due to micromanaging my trades. Whether it's moving my stop to an area that got hit and then reversed, or moving my target further, or exiting out of a trade, none of that is shown here
  • They do not list the potential profit that was lost due to greed. After I came back from my trade I just wanted big 25+ wins to make up for my losses fast, so I turned a lot of 15-20 pt wins into 5 point losses because of this.

Summary of month to month



Here are the actions I listed out last month that I needed to improve on

Quoting 
  1. Stop taking the following setups --> Bull, Bear, GWTF, and 'No Strategy'
  2. Do not trade when the market is flat, you will lose your money 9/10 times
  3. Do not take emotional trades
  4. Do not take mixed trades
  5. Tell yourself that it's ok to miss out, FOMO costs you a lot
  6. Be more cautious during the open
  7. Take a break from 12-14EST - add outlook reminder

  1. Need more work on this
  2. While the number decreased from 20% of my trades to 6%, I still have room to improve on this
  3. I've made big reductions on this and it is now part of my daily psychology goals
  4. This I got worse on , I need to tone those down big time
  5. Oh yes I focused on this like crazy and I feel I have made some big improvements
  6. I have been more cautious, but still have more room to improve
  7. I added the outlook reminder, but I still traded more than I should've during that time. I need to only trade if an alarm is hit

Obviously $ wise the contrast is really bad, but I've made big improvements around psychology. I'm not happy that I lost money but I'm happy that I made a lot of progress around my psychology. I feel calmer as a trader and I am making a lot less FOMO and emotional trades, which were my biggest pitfalls previously. My goal is not short-term profits but long-term growth, I feel I've planted some strong seeds this month, and they will come into fruition in the future!


Summary of actions needed to improve my methodology:
  • Continue trying not to take emotional trades
  • Continue trying not to take FOMO trades
  • Add to my psychology goals something regarding greed, do not get greedy with your trades should do it
  • Focus a lot on not micromanaging your trades, this needs to be part of your psychology prep and psychology goals every morning, just like 0 FOMO trades
  • I need to figure out a way to start tracking when I micromanage trades
  • I need to work on my entry points so that I can get filled on winning trades
  • Exercise more cautiousness during the open
  • Do not trade when the market is flat
  • Please lower your mixed trades

PS- Thanks for your understanding around spelling mistakes / gibberish. If a number doesn't make sense please let me know, I might've made a mistake!

Yesterday's excellence is today's standard and tomorrow's mediocrity
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  #122 (permalink)
 
SoftSoap's Avatar
 SoftSoap 
Canada
 
Experience: Beginner
Platform: NinjaTrader
Broker: InteractiveBrokers
Trading: NQ
Posts: 594 since Aug 2015
Thanks Given: 347
Thanks Received: 1,227

  • ON activity was low range, and relatively balanced for the most part,
  • ON low is ~4860
  • ON high is ~4880
  • Some higher than usual volume from 5:45 - 6:30 after a bear move on low volume which ended up being the ON low - area to watch
  • Could that move be tied to the ECB minutes?
  • Oil opened above the 50 mark, and is currently balancing ~50.20, watch for this to either break out of balance and drive a strong bull trend, or come back into the sub 50 level
  • There's this hurricane thing going on, how does weather have an impact on markets? No idea to be honest, positive for crude price wise?

News
  • Jobless claims came out, slightly better than expected
  • Christine Lagarde on Bloomberg today, how does she impact the market? I'm not sure to be honest
  • Nothing else key to note today, but we got a big jobs report tomorrow, could that be what breaks us out into new all time highs?

Scenarios
  1. Reversal from ON slightly bear trend. We move up to the 4880 area comfortably, struggle a bit from 4880-4890 and reverse trend from there, still finish positive
  2. Strong bear move right off the open, pull back around ON low but continue to trend. Either pullback at 4850 or reverse trend. If just a pullback, then the trend should turn around at ~4840
  3. Trend bear day, High volume at open, market starts off strong and drops in price without hesitation, then things start to slow down and we trend bear until end of day
  4. Trend bull day off the open - Same as above but bull wise
  5. Trend bull day after finding support - We trend bear until we find a strong support zone either at ON low, 4850, or weekly low and then start up a creeping bull market. We continue this until end of the day or until we get very close to all time highs. We could even break all time highs
  6. Market finds support and then ranges between that support and ~4880 area, this would give me 0 setups that I could take

Setups I'll take today


  1. ~4900 area (untested, would be new all time highs)
    • LF Short
    • Can enter preemptively if the market is slowing down when getting close to this
    • Ideally you want a stop behind the 4903 mark, but behind 4901 might be enough
    • Expect strong selling around this area, so if you see some very strong buying that is absorbing everything be careful
    • If you observe higher timeframe players stepping in and selling hard, you may scale in with 1 additional contract, provided your entry is good
    • If we get close to this very late in the session, this becomes a nicer setup to take
    • If market is below the 4890 area when it closes, you might hold ON
    • Intraday target of 4881 seems reasonable although high. 4873 is a more stretch target
    • Watch CL / WTI when getting close to this, if it's rallying like crazy without any signs of slowing down then be extra careful
  2. ~4890 area (PDH, Weekly high, all-time highs)
    • LF Short
    • Be more careful with this than you were yesterday, this area has been tested 4 out of last 10 days (RTH wise)
    • We also spent a lot of time very close to this area yesterday, which is a sign that the market is starting to get more comfortable around these levels
    • Be aware that the recency effect might squeue your psychological bias, so make sure to act on what you read, not what you think
    • Don't enter preemptively, but be ready for a quick decision here
    • You are looking for strong sellers stepping in and buyers stepping back
    • The later this gets hit, the better setup it becomes
    • Stop below the 4893 is a must, behind 4895 is ideal
    • 14 pt target is safe, but you might aim for as low as 4870 depending on the time and the strength of a bear move after this is hit. Don't let greed overcome you though
  3. ~4860 area (ON Low)
    • Likely to be the first area hit today so exercise extra cautiousness if it's within first 30 minutes
    • LF long
    • The signs here have to be very strong for you to take this trade
    • You are looking for aggressive buying, if it's within first 30 minutes you want to see big orders being filled and turning price around
    • Stop behind 4860 is a must
    • Safe target is 4874, stretch target is 4883
    • Entry on this could be tricky, so do not enter if you aren't very comfortable with the trade. It's ok to miss out on this opportunity
    • Be prepared to pass up on this
    • You might be tempted to take a break-down trade, do not do this!
  4. ~4850 area (weak area)
    • LF Long
    • You want to see signs that any bear move is over
    • IF we creeped up to this area, be extra careful
    • DO not enter preemptively
    • Safe target is 4849, stretch target is 4857 - keep that in mind when thinking about your entry point. If you enter too early your R/R will be shit, so don't do that
    • Watch for signs that you bought into a pullback, and get out
  5. ~4840 area (week low)
    • LF long
    • Not likely to hit this today, but if we do then look for signs of strong buying
    • Be extra careful if we have had a bear trend day and we aren't within 45 minutes of closing time

Things to watch
  • Total volume @ open - we had a very strong open yesterday but weak day, will we see any strong players step in to take advantage of the liqudity in the open?
  • Total volume if CL gets below 50 - will we see things picking up due to panic in the CL?
  • ES - Watch to see if any strong areas are broken on the ES, the trend reversals might mirror that today
  • Range - how far will we get in the first 30 minutes?

Psychology goals
  • Do not look at P&L
  • 0 FOMO trades
  • 0 Emotional trades
  • Engage deliberate thinking in all trades
  • Aim for 2 trades, 3 trades maximum but ONLY if we are having a higher range day, and you won at least 1 of the first 2 trades
  • Do not micromanage trades. You may move your stop to secure a profit once, and if the signs are very very strong you may move your target from safe target to your stretch target once, but you must secure a profit of at least 5 points with your stop. If the signs are weak or moderate and you are hoping that the trend continues without the market telling you that, do not do this.
  • Do not get greedy with your trades

Yesterday's excellence is today's standard and tomorrow's mediocrity
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  #123 (permalink)
 
SoftSoap's Avatar
 SoftSoap 
Canada
 
Experience: Beginner
Platform: NinjaTrader
Broker: InteractiveBrokers
Trading: NQ
Posts: 594 since Aug 2015
Thanks Given: 347
Thanks Received: 1,227


First alarm was hit within the first 5 minutes of the open. We were so close to that area that it was more likely to be hit first than any of my other setups.

First potential trade
However before that, I saw signs of strong buying in the first 20 seconds of the open and there was a small part of me that wanted to hit the buy button. I immediately realized that would've been a FOMO trade and an emotional trade, so within seconds I stopped myself from entering this. I would've been stopped in the first 5 minutes so that's good. This all happened so fast that I didn't even take a picture of it, but this is what my brain focused on when I wanted to enter:


A month ago I wouldn't have been able to stop myself from taking this setup. It's not ideal that I want to get myself into these situations, but at least I'm strong enough to snap some sense into myself. These are signs of Conscious Incompetence becoming Conscious Competence (4 stages of competence)


Second potential trade
Okay so here's the first setup that was actually in my plan:

Quoting 
~4860 area (ON Low)
  • Likely to be the first area hit today so exercise extra cautiousness if it's within first 30 minutes
  • LF long
  • The signs here have to be very strong for you to take this trade
  • You are looking for aggressive buying, if it's within first 30 minutes you want to see big orders being filled and turning price around
  • Stop behind 4860 is a must
  • Safe target is 4874, stretch target is 4883
  • Entry on this could be tricky, so do not enter if you aren't very comfortable with the trade. It's ok to miss out on this opportunity
  • Be prepared to pass up on this
  • You might be tempted to take a break-down trade, do not do this!



There were some signs around volume profiles that pointed to a potential reversal, but they looked very weak. Also volume was higher than usual but I didn't see strong signs of buying. I felt it was an easy one to pass up.

The market then pulled back a bit and moved down (would've taken me out), so I made the right decision.

3rd potential trade
Then I started to see the signs I was looking for at the 4855 area, and honestly I wanted to enter. But this wasn't in my trading plan, so I shouldn't diverge from my trading plan.



Who knows though, these could be signs of a pull back.

So 30 minutes in. I've passed up on 3 setups, and taken 0.
2 of those would've been losses, 1 is still up in the air as to whether it would've been a win or a loss $-wise, but it would've been a loss psychology-wise.

Edit- 3rd setup also would've been a loss $-wise

Yesterday's excellence is today's standard and tomorrow's mediocrity
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  #124 (permalink)
 
SoftSoap's Avatar
 SoftSoap 
Canada
 
Experience: Beginner
Platform: NinjaTrader
Broker: InteractiveBrokers
Trading: NQ
Posts: 594 since Aug 2015
Thanks Given: 347
Thanks Received: 1,227

Alarms hit, so I'm back to watching things play out.


Quoting 
4850 area (weak area)
  • LF Long
  • You want to see signs that any bear move is over
  • IF we creeped up to this area, be extra careful
  • DO not enter preemptively
  • Safe target is 4859, stretch target is 4867 - keep that in mind when thinking about your entry point. If you enter too early your R/R will be shit, so don't do that (Made a change on the numbers as I made a typo in my original post, it said target is 4849 which if you are taking a long at 4850 doesn't make sense)
  • Watch for signs that you bought into a pullback, and get out

4th trade opportunity

We sliced down pretty hard after balancing for over an hour. Bloomberg was talking about ECB and QE and whatnot, so I wasn't sure if it had something to do with that or not. To be honest I wasn't paying as much attention as I should've been, I was doing some other non-related stuff.

Signs for a reversal were weak at first, so I wasn't going to place a trade when the signs were very weak but some signs were there so I was going to be watching closely.






The market moved down a bit more and then price was being absorbed. The signs were very strong and I was comfortable that a reversal was going to happen, but I wasn't comfortable as to where the price was going to reverse.


I wanted to take this trade, but I thought that the chance of a reversal could be high at ~VPOC, and the current R/R didn't fit the type of trade I wanted to take so I had to pass up on it. I wanted the market to drop about 5 more points so the R/R could line up more though, so I kept watching!

20 minutes later I was shown that I made the wrong decision. Very fast recovery and destroyed the VPOC area and got close to ON highs.



A better trader would've entered this trade. They would've recognized that signs were strong enough to enter now and taken a chance on price not coming down ~5pts below their entry point.

Yesterday's excellence is today's standard and tomorrow's mediocrity
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  #125 (permalink)
 
SoftSoap's Avatar
 SoftSoap 
Canada
 
Experience: Beginner
Platform: NinjaTrader
Broker: InteractiveBrokers
Trading: NQ
Posts: 594 since Aug 2015
Thanks Given: 347
Thanks Received: 1,227

Weird day today. Some big swings first from panic and then from relief of that panic.

I took 0 trades today, but passed up on 4.
I do regret not taking the last setup though because things looked very good but I guess I wasn't willing to take the risk I thought I needed for the reward that would be likely. That's going to happen though.

Psychology goals
  • Do not look at P&L - Passed
  • 0 FOMO trades - Passed
  • 0 Emotional trades - Passed
  • Engage deliberate thinking in all trades - Passed
  • Aim for 2 trades, 3 trades maximum but ONLY if we are having a higher range day, and you won at least 1 of the first 2 trades - Passed
  • Do not micromanage trades - No chance to test
  • Do not get greedy with your trades - No chance to test


Yesterday's excellence is today's standard and tomorrow's mediocrity
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  #126 (permalink)
 
SoftSoap's Avatar
 SoftSoap 
Canada
 
Experience: Beginner
Platform: NinjaTrader
Broker: InteractiveBrokers
Trading: NQ
Posts: 594 since Aug 2015
Thanks Given: 347
Thanks Received: 1,227

I took 2 trades during the jobs market report and I made some mistakes on both

First trade came out right as soon as I saw the jobs report number. The number was on the low end of the consensus range so I expected the market to drop after we rallied up so I took a short ~4876 after it rallied 20 points but it was too early to short, I got out 20 seconds after I realized the number hadn't hit bloomberg yet (I was f5ing Econoday).

I then waited for it to come down but I got in a bit late at 4877.25 and was going to stay short until I saw strong signs that it might turn around.

At ~4872 mark I saw quite a bit of orders coming in and I was thinking that maybe this was the end of the bear move so I took a panic exit to guarantee a profit and be up a bit going into the morning session. This pretty much put me just 1 point above for the 2 trades.

My target was ~4862 and it would've been hit a minute or 2 later. I was just in loss aversion mode so I didn't want to hold for longer

I now have an hour to clear my mind and prepare myself for the day, I don't want to be in loss aversion mode today.

Yesterday's excellence is today's standard and tomorrow's mediocrity
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  #127 (permalink)
 
SoftSoap's Avatar
 SoftSoap 
Canada
 
Experience: Beginner
Platform: NinjaTrader
Broker: InteractiveBrokers
Trading: NQ
Posts: 594 since Aug 2015
Thanks Given: 347
Thanks Received: 1,227

  • ON activity was relatively low range
  • GBP flash crash last night
  • Jobs report came on the lower end of the consensus range, market rallied up ~30 pts just before it came out / as soon as it came out, then it came back down about 20 pts and is currently bullishly creeping up
  • We have been tightening the range lately
  • Volume has also been dropping lately with Tuesday being an anomaly
  • The wicks are getting bigger and bigger on the day candles. It's less heavily directional and more tight range with tests above and below the open and close
  • Is this a sign of the tight range environment that's about to come with the election?

News
  • Some fed speakers (1030, 1245, 1500, and 1600)
  • Keep an eye out to see if any of them talk about today's job report and how that will impact a November meeting

Scenarios
  1. Bull trend day - creeping bull market after struggling a bit on the open, then going on until either 4900 triggers some higher time frame players to step in,new ES all time highs trigger higher time frame players to step in, or the end of the day comes
  2. Bear trend day - creeping bear market after struggling, we break the ON low, potentially
  3. Market moves up right off the open until it gets to ~ all time highs, then it pulls back to ~4860 before rallying until the end of the day
  4. Market finds resistance at ~ PDH (4880) and then moves down until it finds support, it then bull creeps up close to the 4890 area, we see some people liquidating for the end of week
  5. Market trends bear until we find support, then it creeps up bull for the rest of the day until end of week ramp

Setups I'll take today



  1. ~4900 area (untested - Strong)
    • LF Short
    • Can enter preemptively if the market is slowing down when getting close to this
    • Ideally you want a stop behind the 4903 mark, but behind 4901 might be enough
    • Expect strong selling around this area, so if you see some very strong buying that is absorbing everything be careful
    • If you observe higher timeframe players stepping in and selling hard, you may scale in with 1 additional contract, provided your entry is good
    • If we get close to this very late in the session, this becomes a nicer setup to take
    • If market is below the 4890 area when it closes, you might hold ON
    • Intraday target of 4881 seems reasonable although high. 4873 is a more stretch target
    • Watch where the ES is at when we get close to this, they have a lot more room to go before reaching their all-time highs
  2. ~4890 area (All time high - Medium - Strong)
    • LF Short
    • Be careful, this area has been tested 4 out of last 11 days (RTH wise)
    • We also spent a lot of time very close to this area this week, which is a sign that the market is starting to get more comfortable around these levels
    • Be aware that the recency effect might skew your psychological bias, so make sure to act on what you read, not what you think
    • Don't enter preemptively, but be ready for a quick decision here
    • You are looking for strong sellers stepping in and buyers stepping back
    • The later this gets hit, the better setup it becomes, but if it's a bull creeping market the whole day, you don't want to take it before 315
    • Stop behind the 4893 is a must, behind 4895 is ideal
    • 14 pt target is safe, but you might aim for as low as 4870 depending on the time and the strength of a bear move after this is hit. Don't let greed overcome you though
    • Watch the ES as we get close to this, as they have a lot of room to go before hitting their all-time highs and it seems that the NQ just mirrors the ES movements (direction wise at least it's my observation)
  3. ~4880 area (PDH - Weak)
    • LF Short
    • You are not looking for a trend reversal here, so don't take that trade
    • We have already passed this area during the jobs report
    • This is an area where you are looking to add to your short position from 4890 if the market is moving down very fast
    • Do not take this in the later sessions
    • This setup is looking for some very specific signs, and it's only for adding onto your position, so remember that
    • Be prepared to pass up on this
    • Do not set alarms for this until you are in a trade at ~4890 area
    • You might see some signs of reversal around here, but don't take the trade. The chance of us getting to the 4888+ area are just too high
  4. ~Open
    • LF Long
    • If you see some strong selling at first and then even stronger buying after finding some sort of volume support, then take a long
    • You are looking for signs that the market liked the jobs report number because it makes November a very difficult case to make
    • This will require quick decision making but you want to see enough signs, a couple of signs are not sufficient to take this
    • You will most likely not take this setup, so don't prepare yourself mentally to be in this trade
  5. ~4855 area (ON Low - Weak)
    • LF Long
    • Could be the first area hit today, if that is the case then you want to watch very closely as it could be a very juicy setup
    • This setup could align perfectly with the one above, they don't have to be different
    • This area hasn't held for the entire day for the last 2 weeks, so eventually you will want to move your stop a break even + X point to avoid a pullback taking you back completely
    • Safe stop is behind the 4850 area, ideally behindm 4848
    • Safe target would be ~14 pts, but could be as high as ~4872 - watch to see where VPOC is at to get a good reading on where to set target
    • Open for the week is 4867.25, so if it looks like we are going to continue this 4 week bull weekly rally, then you can aim for a target above that
    • Do not take this if it's late in the day
  6. ~4845 area (PDL - Medium)
    • LF long
    • You want to see signs that a bear move is over
    • Exhaustion might be good enough to enter on this trade, but take into account the time of day
    • If we have a creeping bear market leading up to this, exercise extra caution
    • Be prepared to pass up on this setup
  7. ~4840 area (week low - Strong)
    • LF long
    • Safe trade to take unless we have news that should indicate we go lower
    • Hold until you see signs of a end of week move
    • Stop behind 4836 is ideal

Psychology goals
  • Do not look at P&L - already failed
  • 0 FOMO trades
  • 0 emotional trades
  • You are looking to take 2 trades but you can take 3 if the market is very very volatile (excludes trades during pre market jobs report)
  • Do not micromanage trades
  • Do not get greedy with your trades, 13-17 pt targets should be more than good enough

Yesterday's excellence is today's standard and tomorrow's mediocrity
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  #128 (permalink)
 
SoftSoap's Avatar
 SoftSoap 
Canada
 
Experience: Beginner
Platform: NinjaTrader
Broker: InteractiveBrokers
Trading: NQ
Posts: 594 since Aug 2015
Thanks Given: 347
Thanks Received: 1,227

First trade opportunity - Taken

Took 1 trade shortly after open.


Quoting 
~Open
  • LF Long
  • If you see some strong selling at first and then even stronger buying after finding some sort of volume support, then take a long
  • You are looking for signs that the market liked the jobs report number because it makes November a very difficult case to make
  • This will require quick decision making but you want to see enough signs, a couple of signs are not sufficient to take this
  • You will most likely not take this setup, so don't prepare yourself mentally to be in this trade

Market opened and rallied up to the 4880 area, then moved back down until the 4864 area. I saw what looked like strong support there so I took a trade above it as close as I could, I had to get filled at a pretty crappy price of 4869.25, but I was expecting the price to jump up to the ~4890 area so the R/R was still good.




The market moved up a bit from that and then just started tanking, so I got stopped out. A better entry point wouldn't have made a difference as I would've been stopped out either way

Error was bad read
Trade grade was Ok
  • It may or may not have been part of the plan
  • Some signs were there, but it felt like a 51/49 gamble
  • Decent (but not good) target and/or stop

Second trade opportunity - Passed

Alarm hit at ~ ON low

Quoting 
~4855 area (ON Low - Weak)
  • LF Long
  • Could be the first area hit today, if that is the case then you want to watch very closely as it could be a very juicy setup
  • This setup could align perfectly with the one above, they don't have to be different
  • This area hasn't held for the entire day for the last 2 weeks, so eventually you will want to move your stop a break even + X point to avoid a pullback taking you back completely
  • Safe stop is behind the 4850 area, ideally behindm 4848
  • Safe target would be ~14 pts, but could be as high as ~4872 - watch to see where VPOC is at to get a good reading on where to set target
  • Open for the week is 4867.25, so if it looks like we are going to continue this 4 week bull weekly rally, then you can aim for a target above that
  • Do not take this if it's late in the day



Way too many signs showing a bear trend continuation, 0 chance of me taking this, although if I got a perfect entry and a perfect exit it might've been a win as it rallied ~14 pts, but highly unlikely to be honest.

Third trade opportunity - Passed


I was watching the rally up thinking to myself that maybe I passed up a good trade, and thought maybe I could get in on a pullback, but this wasn't part of my plan at all

Fourth trade opportunity - Passed



Again we hit the ON low area, but this time the signs look even worse than the first time, no reason to enter unless you see signs of higher time frame players stepping in, and that is very unlikely at ~4850 area

However, I'm getting prepared for a potential turnaround coming in the next hr

Fifth trade opportunity - Passed


Quoting 
~4845 area (PDL - Medium)
  • LF long
  • You want to see signs that a bear move is over
  • Exhaustion might be good enough to enter on this trade, but take into account the time of day
  • If we have a creeping bear market leading up to this, exercise extra caution
  • Be prepared to pass up on this setup

No signs of bear move being over, the market move looks very strong, we sliced through ON Low easily, it looks likely we'll take down the PDL, so I'm passing up on this.

At this time I'm thinking to myself, "I sure wish I threw a short in there somewhere, this bear move looks amazing "


Sixth trade opportunity - Taken and Filled


Quoting 
~4840 area (week low - Strong)
  • LF long
  • Safe trade to take unless we have news that should indicate we go lower
  • Hold until you see signs of a end of week move
  • Stop behind 4836 is ideal


I saw signs that things were slowing down, and I got in earlier than I usually would.



One of the biggest issues I've had lately is not getting filled on my trades. The logical way to combat this is to get in a bit earlier than expected, and increase your risk.
I usually take 4.5 pts of risk, here I took ~6pts of risk. With a target of 18 pts though it's still a 3:1 trade

If I took 4.5 I would've been stopped out



Emotionally I was 1 point away from being stopped, and my finger was very close to the exit trigger, but I told myself I would not micromanage my trades.

I was very confident that the market was going to reverse, at least for a big pullback. But I just wasn't 100% confident that my entry price was going to hold up.


I kept checking to make sure that there weren't any signs that I should exit the market.
Honestly I wanted to exit at some points, but I kept looking for stronger signs that I was wrong, and I couldn't find too many.

I told myself, you need to not micromanage your trades, the R/R is good so just let the trade ride.

The trade then went way up and it looked very strong so I thought about taking my target out altogether and leaving it for a couple of hours more, while moving my stop up about 10 pts to guarantee a profit.

I wanted to do this, but this is greedy. My psych goals are telling me not to be greedy so I don't want to ok greedy behaviour.



I'll take the 18 pt trade on a falling knife reversal


Edit:
Trade grade - Good
  • It was in the plan
  • Observed signs of entry
  • Good target and stop

Yesterday's excellence is today's standard and tomorrow's mediocrity
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  #129 (permalink)
 
SoftSoap's Avatar
 SoftSoap 
Canada
 
Experience: Beginner
Platform: NinjaTrader
Broker: InteractiveBrokers
Trading: NQ
Posts: 594 since Aug 2015
Thanks Given: 347
Thanks Received: 1,227

First week of the month, and I didn't take as many trades as I would like, although I was fully actively trading the market. Tuesday was the exception as I wasn't feeling very good so I didn't trade at all. However, that doesn't mean I wasn't watching the market closely or making decisions, I just passed up on a lot of trades that didn't look favorable.

Goals for the week
  • 0 FOMO trades - Failed
  • 0 Emotional trades - Passed
  • Do not look at P&L until end of week - Failed
  • Engage deliberate thinking in all trades - Passed
  • Journal daily - I didn't journal Tuesday but I didn't trade Tuesday, so apart from that I passed
  • Don't delay your end of month summary, the stats in there are important - Passed
  • You are getting behind on your book, make a lot more progress on it this week - Oh jeez, total fail on this one
  • Maximum of 3 trades a day, but on most days aim for 2 trades max - Passed

1 FOMO trade this week which funny enough ended up being a loss. This was on Friday I was looking for a move at the open, and while it was in my plan, I missed the entry I wanted and FOMO took over and I took a fill 5pts worse. Either way it would've been a loss so that doesn't matter, but it turned out to be a FOMO trade. Had I just said 'oh well I missed the entry' and waited for the price to come back to me, it wouldn't have been a FOMO trade

P&L- 3.25%
Trades taken- 5
Rational trades- 2
Emotional trades- 0
Mixed trades- 3

Out of those trades:
Excellent trades- 1
Good trades- 1
Ok trades- 2
Bad trades- 1
Really bad trades- 0

0 really bad trades, woohoo

Win%- 60
Weekly expectancy- 111.00

The 2 numbers above are statistically insignificant as I only took 5 trades this week, but it's a good start to the month.

Yesterday's excellence is today's standard and tomorrow's mediocrity
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  #130 (permalink)
 
SoftSoap's Avatar
 SoftSoap 
Canada
 
Experience: Beginner
Platform: NinjaTrader
Broker: InteractiveBrokers
Trading: NQ
Posts: 594 since Aug 2015
Thanks Given: 347
Thanks Received: 1,227


5,000 views on the journal, thanks for reading everyone!
  • Market reached new all time highs
  • Still creeping up bull-wise long term
  • Range has been dropping
  • Wicks have been growing on both sides, showing signs of uncertainty
  • Volume stabilizing ~1MM / week
  • China data Thursday night
  • FOMC minutes on Wednesday
  • Friday will see Yellen speak as well as some other major data
  • News wise not much until Friday


Psychology goals for this week
  • Do not look at P&L
  • 0 FOMO trades
  • 0 Emotional trades
  • Engage deliberate thinking in all trades
  • Journal daily
  • Make progress on book - don't be lazy on this
  • Aim for 2 trades on most days, Friday can be an exception with major news
  • Think of a good trade management rule that should give you flexibility should the market be very directional, but protect you from yourself most of the time
  • Abide by whatever micromanagement rule you create
  • Do not get greedy with your trades

Yesterday's excellence is today's standard and tomorrow's mediocrity
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Last Updated on September 4, 2017


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