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Brandon’s Journal for Accountability - Live Futures Account
Daily Review for 08/15/17:
5 orders, 2 trades, P/L: -2.1R
RTY/TF - trade idea mentioned last night was not taken because of where the other indexes were trading at the time the trade setup. Level was also right at D1 resistance I missed yesterday.
ES - nothing wrong with this setup, but I managed to screw up the execution by locking my stop in too tight. It should be where the white line is above the most recent swing. I should also have anticipated the market overrunning the level by a few ticks as that's where the previous day's highs were. More importantly, I completely overlooked the fact that because 2461 did not hold as resistance yesterday, it should likely be support today. This is exactly what happened but by the time I realized this, I had missed the morning entry and the highlighted afternoon entry never setup (I wanted a break and failure at the daily low).
YM - took this trade on a failure at the current day's low with a gap to also support price between my entry and stop. Stop price was determined using ATR but this trade simply didn't work, and I was stopped out accordingly.
NQ - thought about shorting 5910.50 at the red arrow for a rotation to the lows but I talked myself out of it with the reasoning that the level I was selling wasn't significant enough. Worked perfectly
GC - had an order at 1277.6 to short but pulled it when price started to chop sideways and form a level before my price.
CL - also had an order here to short 47.49 for a quick 1R scalp but pulled the order when I wasn't filled when I wanted at the red arrow.
EMD - another order pulled here because the market didn't trade into it the way I wanted. In my mind, the move had already occurred so this breakout/re-test setup was no longer valid. An analog showing what I expected of this setup occurred in the NQ on 05/05/17.
Other notes:
USDJPY has always given me problems when it comes to analysis and looking at the levels I called out last night, the market continues to confirm that. I don't know what it is about that market, but it seems to not respect levels that would otherwise hold in other markets.
Markets: GBPUSD (6B) - massive level above market at 1.29575. As of right now will be offered here going into FOMC stop 1.29711. Slightly concerned it has been tested already on the lower timeframes but it should have no problem holding the market. USDJPY (6J) - level below market at 109.745 still in play but will be sidelined until I get more confidence in my read on the yen USDCHF (6S) - bullish PA around 0.96762 will get me long off H4 support GC - spike lower into 1271 is still valid for a long CL - big level at 48.43 I'll be watching for a short after inventories tomorrow for a sharp move lower, assuming inventory spikes price higher. 48.88 also a level to keep in mind if the first area fails. EMD - 1711 below market for a long YM - 21877 below market for a long w/gap confluence RTY - 1372.7 below market for a long w/gap confluence
Other notes:
Best opportunity imo is the play in oil on inventories followed by sterling on FOMC. Will allocate risk accordingly. Also, each of the 3 equity levels mentioned are essentially the same area of liquidity, so although that's potentially 3 different setups in 3 different markets, it's more of an overall idea to buy a re-test of the 08/11 session highs.
Markets: *overall no major changes to the previous plan* GC - 1276.8 will be a little area to watch for a long *edit (8:59 AM): this setup was just negated and is no longer valid because the market traded back into it way too soon for a re-test trade (merely a wick on the 30M)*
Other notes:
n/a
Midday update (10:52 AM): CL inventories was relatively a dud today but the level is still valid. As for FOMC, I think the level in GBPUSD is too far away from market to reasonably expect it to trade. Rather, I'll be offered 1.2747 in USDCAD, stop 1.2764. I could probably run a stop tighter, but I'm not about to repeat my ES mistake yesterday. Not as significant of a level, but enough for me. GBPUSD level remains valid regardless.
Daily Review for 08/16/17:
3 orders, 0 trades, P/L: 0R
GBPUSD (6B) / USDCAD (6C) - levels came nowhere near trading on the FOMC minutes release so the orders were pulled
GC - limit buy at 1276.8 this morning was pulled because the market traded back too soon.
CL - price acted as expected; spiking higher into previous lows before selling off, but I never got the entry I wanted so I passed on the setup.
ES - missed a short setup at 11AM here simply because I wasn't alert enough. Market failed at it's daily high into major lows from the 8th.
NQ - missed another setup here long at 11:25 as the market re-tested it's most recent touch of it's opening range highs. Pretty classic breakout trade but again, I simply wasn't paying as much attention as normal because I was more focussed on oil and FOMC later in the day.
News:
4:30 AM - GBP Retail Sales
8:30 AM - USD Unemployment
10:30 AM - NG Inventories
Markets: AUDUSD - market is currently running up into daily lows so long trades should be held with caution GBPUSD - 1.29575 above market still valid for a short USDCAD - watching 1.25157 below market for a long, but quite a distance from market. Also 1.25905 an area to be cautious holding any shorts into USDJPY - level called yesterday (109.745) is currently trading a holding as a bottom. If there ends up being decent upside momentum from here, I'll gain a little more confidence reading the yen. GC - watching the 1290 area for a long, on the daily gold looks like it's about to go parabolic. 1280 below market will be a good level for a long, but I don't expect it to trade until at soonest next week. CL - bearish PA around 47.45 will get me short, not a massive level so not looking to run equity markets - levels mentioned yesterday are still valid.
Daily Review for 08/16/17:
3 orders, 1 trade, P/L: -1R
AUDUSD - my sentiment against being long into daily lows ended up being correct, but the market didn't really offer any levels to trade this idea. Market +0.18% last night to closing -0.57%
EURUSD - I somehow completely missed this this morning but the market offered an excellent long setup and entry shown below. The market broke it's previous low sharply but failed to close below on the higher timeframes. For the entry, the lower timeframes put in a small level of selling below the previous low which is were the market found buy-side liquidity on a rounded return.
USDJPY - level from last night held very well so will continue to watch and analyze the yen before trading it.
USDCAD - level below market that was mentioned last night held as the low to nearly the pip. Problem is I didn't think it was a significant enough level to actually bid.
GC - 1290 held messily on the bid but by the time I woke up, the opportunity was gone.
NQ/ES - I missed a few ~1R scalps in the morning but the big opportunity came when the morning low broke in both the NQ and ES. My idea was to short the last low pre-break and I decided to execute in the NQ, although the trade was also valid in the ES. This was an enormous mistake. The price I was offered in the NQ never traded even though the same level in the ES held with 1 tick drawdown. Not only did it hold, but the market offered multiple pyramid opportunities had I taken the setup in the ES instead of the NQ. As for the other annotation in the ES screenshot, I also had an order to go long in the morning but I quickly pulled it when the NQ failed at it's morning high on the M5.
EMD - the first screenshot shows a setup I missed because I didn't have my charts set to the M1 on the open like I normally do. This is a standard re-test of a wrong-direction open drive. The second screenshot shows the only trade I took today, out of desperation seeing all the levels I called beforehand working. The level I called (1711) a few days ago nearly traded early in the morning so I figured I'd buy on a second touch with a gap failure. That's what I got so I took the trade as planned even though in reality the opportunity was already gone. I used an ATR stop and was quickly taken out.
YM - missed a setup because I was busy coding a position sizing script that ironically would have returned the highest R I think I've ever seen. Whenever a market puts in a very small level before a breakout, that level usual serves as a springboard for the break, which was my reasoning in this case. More importantly (because to be honest I probably would have mismanaged that trade), the 21877 level I called a few days ago held incredibly this morning and even offered an entry on the M2 with a fairly tight ATR stop. It's just that I don't seem to have a good history with ATR stops so I skipped out on it. In hindsight, stop would have been safe and the trade would have had >4R MFE.
No plan for tomorrow until tomorrow morning because I have no levels in mind overnight. I'm either too exhausted to see anything meaningful, or the markets have just traded out exceptionally well today. Besides, the only levels I do have in mind are in the equity markets, and those levels are only valid during RTH anyway so there's no sense in posting until tomorrow morning.
Also, I plan on posting a more detailed summary of my strategy with setup examples and other miscellaneous notes sometime this weekend. That post will be linked in the Quick Summary Post at the beginning of the thread.
Edit: (9:21 AM Friday 08/18/17)
Morning Pre-Market Review 08/18/17:
Still no levels close enough to market to be significant. With opex today, I'm thinking we'll be pegged in place until Monday. Gold has broken out as expected and as a whole, RTY and EMD are making the market very fragile but the trend line is still intact with RTY failing at its previous major swing low. This leaves me fairly direction neutral for the day so I'll be taking short term trades only.
Daily Review for 08/18/17:
5 orders, 2 trades, P/L: -2R
GC - as expected, gold broke out of a major range on Friday but when I woke up, it was trading sharply off of it's highs with bearish action near the peak. I thought that would make for a good short in anticipation of the breakout being undone but for me, the level wasn't significant enough. However, it ended up holding perfectly as the entire breakout unwound. Also later in the day, the last high pre-break held for a short time before flipping to resistance on the re-test. I didn't take this trade because the level was messy on the way down and I was unsure of stop placement.
USDJPY - taking into account the PA in GC and the correlation between gold and the yen, I also had this setup on my radar but completely forgot about it until after the market was closed for the weekend. The market offered an excellent entry after a failure at it's previous major swing. ATR stop would have been more than safe here.
CL - I didn't think my levels from a few days ago would even trade today but since they were still valid, I hit both. The first level (pre-breakdown inventory day lows) held for a very short amount of time before taking my ATR stop out. The second level stopped the market dead but instead of it trading off or consolidation and continuing higher, it just sat on my level and traded sideways. Since I don't use time stops, I held my position and even added once the market failed at it's high, but I was eventually stopped out on this one too. Opex may have played a role in this move so I'll be watching it closely on Monday.
YM - Yet another level I didn't expect to trade during this session, but also another level that worked excellent. Market failed at previous daily highs offering an excellent entry, but again I wasn't paying enough attention to catch it.
NQ - Had an order here on the break of morning highs to get long on a re-test but the market never traded back so I cancelled on new highs. Later in the day though, there was a minor reaction off the level but in my mind, the opportunity was gone.
ES - Corresponding level here in the ES held to the tick just before 3:30PM but I didn't get a fill, and ended up cancelling my order when the market broke higher toward my target. Looking back, had I been filled, the market never traded my target so this would have been a tough one to manage.
Other notes:
Overall a disappointing week in terms of results but I'm very happy with my process, planning, and not breaking my rules for a change. I think I'm being a little too selective with my trades as it always seems that the levels I find too marginal are the ones that end up working the best. I'll take that into account going into the week ahead. Daily plan and strategy post also coming later today.
Markets: GBPUSD - 1.29575 above market still valid for a short EURUSD - market looks like it wants to continue higher so long trades only. If I enter long, I'll be looking to take profits just before 1.18096 USDCHF - will be watching 0.97040 above market for PA to get short USDCAD - market is trading at previous daily highs so long trades only here too. Decent level below market at 1.25157. GC - *massive* short bias here. Expecting the market to trade at least 9 or 10 points down into the 1280 area. If the market doesn't move straight down, I'll be looking for auction failure at 1295 to get short. Will be looking to run any shorts into 1280 and I'll actually be looking to play a bounce long at 1279.4, stop 1277. CL - looking for shorts at 49.04, rollover adjusted. That corresponds to 48.86 in the September contract. Will be looking to run this. ES/NQ/YM - I don't want to go all out and call an upside trend day tomorrow but I definitely think there's a bias to the long side. I'll be looking for long entries in the morning to run. I think the NQ has the greatest potential. RTY/EMD - I'm not as biased to the long side here and I wouldn't be surprised at all to see a flat day in the small/mid caps and a sizable up day in main indexes. Levels that the market will likely run into resistance are 1366 in RTY and 1711 in EMD.
