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Weekly Wrap. 12 RTY trades for $150. $12/trade. 2W, 2L, 4 SW, 4, SL.
First full week of trading for the year and it brought the 1st losing day and the 1st full planned stop loss (same day). 1st Hyde trade (not the planned L, because Hyde don’t plan). Biggest winning trade and day YTD. Expectancy is low. W/L/S isn’t good.
Made 1 post trade analysis with NT8. Keeping up the mechanics, but not using it to trade since Dec. Using the profile tools which are excellent and suffering through the rest of the drawing tools. Made some pics on rollover adjustment for the 2/14 trade 4. I’m still neutral on that subject. Voodoo or adjusted voodoo? Found that a simple measured move on the 1d chart got it done best of anything with 4t risk and a lot less work. See pics. I don’t see the value of the extra work to maintain adjusted drawings.
Made a 6d survey of buy / sell distributions in a bull channel. Looking to find a counter-trend bias. Distributions were OK, but it shows performance problems, so inconclusive.
The journaling contest has got me cleaning up my entire system. And I’m subscribing to some good journals and adapting other journaling styles I see. I’ve never been a daily goal manager, but I see others using it, so…
My most immediate goal is to replay trade some known trend days to solve the problem of the low with-trend participation rate. I need more participation on joining trends. Maybe some conditioning gets it done.
Next goal. After the contest: find my YTD buy/sell ratio. And last year’s trade count/day.
I'm getting behind posting. This is yesterday's entry.
Replay. RTY 2/15/19. Attempt to condition myself for with-trend will to participate. First practice so made some rules:
1. General replay and sim rules - except the random pick. Pick a known trend day.
2. No counter-trend trades.
3. Exit at all regular T1 exits. This makes for more with-trend planning and entry experience, because it puts me flat more often and for more time. (Size is still limited to 2, so just can’t buy bigger and swing).
I sidestepped the gen rule for the 6:30 weekend start. Was Presidents day and started 6h or more late. I immediately noticed that my memory of the day wasn’t right and this feeling carried through to quitting time. They made a series of contracting bull flags through the day. I knew the first 2 were big enough to stop me out, but wasn’t sure beginning around late morn. I didn’t feel any bullish certainty, like I expected, but rather the regular level of uncertainty that is average for most days. Being wed to the with-trend side felt like a neutral comparison w/ the not knowing feeling of live. Using the regular risk/reward methods is key to being able to test these feelings.
The result was a surprise, but I’m still optimistic that the intended conditioning is possible. Maybe the big secret solution to beating a counter-trend bias is the revelation that neutrality is key. That at least sounds like an improvement. First time out experience has me wanting to go again.
Trade 1 was a DCB. The first of 4 (to 13:10). Well planned and fairly well managed. I moved to risk relief too early, but at least waited until a little 1m topping pattern formed and broke down. I shaved a little off the tgt (in the plan) and let it ride till it filled. I went 4t shy from the usual tgt taken from the YR RFE, which saw a perfect 1t trade-through.
The secular bull continues. G selling down to YR 75% and then a bull TFTO. Big sellable bull flags end in pennant reversals. 3 of these as of 1:30 (2 on the HTF chart). Each one was joinable at the axle.
2/21 1 RTY trade for $18. 1 SW. Closed IWM put trade for $27, SW.
Tokyo buys them up and London sells them down for a G FBO. GL made at 8:29. Neutral at the open because the G BO attempt hasn’t failed yet and it could be a BOPB buy. Selling continues after the open but it’s ugly HWC. Lots of buyers at YSL. Not liquidation but not bullish either.
8:50 - Decided to scratch the put and tried to offer at the bottom of the HWC. Put buyers not interested in mid-spread prices at all. Had to chase them on a quick V bottom and ended up cussing them. 17% ROC. Not happy at all.
Trade 1: see pics. Buying at or below the HWC is working and the risk feels like it’s on the sellers. The HWC goes outside (5m chart, but still sideways on 30m) on a nice YSL FBD. My buy was at the PB to that price. SW in the 1m chop that set in. Used lmt to scratch. Mo unhappy.
12:00 - Steady stream of work interruptions. Big W bottom (H&S) on the morn. Neutral. Still think risk is on the sellers.
2:30 - Lower lows. Wrong on direction. SW was a DCB. Not focused. Excessive work interruptions. Generally pissed off at the world.
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2/20 No futes trades. Had to leave at 9:00 and returned around 1:15. FOMC notes just released. Bid on some IWM puts around the HOD. Got filled on one. The open was lethargic. Wasn’t interested in anything. No pattern logging today, but I think that’s OK for limited screen time on a nothing day. Feels OK to give a rest.
Bought the exact LOD and sold 3t in front the HOD. Only took 32t of 187t available in those 2 trades.
Trade 1: HTF 1/8 curve BOPB. The BO occurred in the G and the PB in the NYSE. Got too close with the stop.
Trade 2: HTF 1/8 curve pivot. HTF bull CL, YH (virgin GH). Yesterday’s G was a FBO for day traders, so it looked attractive. Feared a slingshot past the HTF CL and generally feared it because it looked too good to work. Should have bought IWM puts again, but didn’t have a plan made.
Weakness to hold winners continues. Planning and participation management is good (the low participation is negated when the entries are consistently good).
4d week and then had to work 1 day, so 2 days of trading. Small sample size for the week, but happy that its improved. 2nd week in a row with a day that consisted of 2 trades, one each at the H&LOD.
Trade #1: Sold YR 150%. Scratched for BE when it went wheel. 15t MAE / 21t MFE in first wheel. Then tgt out at the planned 25t. Pissed off.
Trade #2: Sold in the same area. Scratched for BE quicker than 1st trade.
Trade #3: Bought Settle. Came in w/ the 2nd mouse. Scratched for BE in the chop.
Forced use of NT8 to maintain familiarity. Using less drawings because the dwg tools suck. Wasted a lot of time with basic dwg tasks.
Gap-n-sideways. Breaks down at 11:55 and sells off to settle, tradable bounce and then flat into the close.
Sold the HOD DT twice and bought the LOD. Scratched all 3 for a total of 7t on the day. HTF range continues to work well, but largely ignored it today after the 1st trade.
11 RTY trades for -605. 1 W, 3 L, 2 SW, 5 SL (3 no plan).
9:10 2 attempts to buy below a sideways open. Missed both. I was at a range support and they came in a few ticks below the prev L. Made a mistake on the 1/8 curve value. I thought they were 14t and thought the sideways was less tradable than it was.
9:51 Sideways breaks down. Small liquidation stops at approx. -100% of the opening range. Began aggressively trading after sitting on hands all morning.
12:17 Trading halt. Last trade was mistakenly on the wrong side and it worked great as it was planned. Didn’t take any of my usual trades. Overtraded. Chased any small bullshit pattern. Completely off the system.
1:03 P&P a couple of orders at HTF prices. They’re working, but I wasn’t trading them earlier.
14:39 Made a couple of scratched winners. Back to trading the HTF. Not sure why I deviated to begin with. The initial loser set me off and couldn’t get back on track for hours.
Today isn’t the fault of the system. It’s due to a lack of self-control. I sat out the morning sideways chop and waited to get in when they got two-sided. After waiting, I was too eager to start, and the first 2 losers (basic range measuring mistakes, btw) threw me completely off.
Didn’t take a single pic between the bells. Pattern logging got sloppy early and that led to abandoning all planning for a few hours.
Still struggling. Felt more comfortable back on TOS, but not enough. Had the LOD and HOD again, but also had 5 bad trades in a higher than usual trade count. Scratched the LOD but held the HOD for the day’s only winner. LOD was GL/YR -50%/HTF bull chan mean. HOD was YR 37% and a HTF ½ range.
Trades #1 & 2: Took a couple of shots at the GL and scratched them in the chop. They became SW for a DCB at the min targets. Failed to prep the HTF chart and wasn’t looking at the time, so missed a cluster of support opportunities, in which I bought too high. See pattern log.
Trade #3: small flag back at YR 50%. Also fading a small BO above the GL. Near to a DT PB, which has been working on bear days, but I was early. The trade was at the prev 5m tail top and the bull chan 150% that I was using for the flag back. Coming in too tight, stops are holding, but taking 15t drawdowns and scratching winners.
10:25 - Discovered I made a YR range math error again. 2nd day in a row.
Lot of work interruptions.
12:36 - notes on the YH test (see pattern log). Planned to use a rev pattern rather than limit in. Didn’t get one (got a castle) and missed a T1 W. Selling is lethargic and thin. When they did get to selling it wasn’t the typical liquidation. There were 2 small and short lived liquidations (3 1m bars and 4 1m bars). After the castle formed, I just gave up, but then every small BDPB setup worked, so I also failed to join. If I’m to work the edges with small patterns rather than limit orders, I have to also be willing to join if I don’t get the perfect rev pattern at my price. Using limit orders works at 50 - 60%, so I want to keep that as the primary tactic, but I want to add some join-the-trend skills as a supplemental tactic.
