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Leeloo Trading $50k Account | April 2023 Journal Challenge
The structure as to how I will write my journal entries will include my trading psychology, trades, and overall performance together.
BEFORE TRADING:
Before I started trading, I felt quite groggy and definitely wanting more hours of sleep. I knew right away that I was not at my peak performance. I had roughly 3-4 hours of rest. I allowed myself to rest another 30 minutes and after waking up the 2nd time, I felt more alive and wanting to get prepared for the market. Putting in my air pods to listen to my psychology videos allowed me to get in the right headspace and feeling more centered with myself. I had prepared my charts the night before and I took some time to review them if there needed to be any updates. At this point, the market was already open but I don't feel the need to rush and login to force anything to happen. Lastly, I hopped into my skype call with my trading friends and the trading day has now begun.
DURING/AFTER TRADING:
The trades I focused on was during the peak drop around 7:45AM. Once order flow went bearish, I did not want to allow myself to feel FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) since I did not see my other confluences line up yet. I waited to enter until things aligned me with my plan: next level of liquidity sweep, break of structure/previous lows, space away from the 9/21 EMA, and the target of lows from premarket. I used Bookmap to see the amount of orders being placed if buyers or sellers were stepping in. My plan was hit and I executed. Granted, my entries were not ideal as I did not use limit, but bid orders. Definitely need to work on placing these type of orders for more optimal entries (noted). Nonetheless, I started to feel my adrenaline arise, so I decided to stop trading and focus on this trading journal instead to calm down. I felt a sense of FOMO since I missed the entire big drop and only captured a certain amount of points, but I am proud that I stuck to my plan and my position size today.
Overall, I felt like my performance and psychology meshed well. There is always room for improvement, and my area of learning will be using limit orders. I prefer bid orders overall, but for optimal trade entries and higher probability trades, I will need to spend time studying limit orders (even if I don't use limit orders in the future, understanding the importance of them).
BEFORE TRADING:
I woke up with energy and not feeling distressed. I allowed myself time to mentally prepare for the market by listening to Rande Howell on YouTube and cleaning up my room. I finished my morning routine of self care, which helped me feel refreshed and ready to jump into trading. As always, I reviewed my charts from the night before and I noticed we had filled the gap from Friday/Monday. This gave me indication that we are more balanced, but we do have some news today so I have to go into trading with a very open mind.
DURING/AFTER TRADING:
While trading, I found myself hesitant to execute on my plan. I saw levels of liquidity being swept and multiple time frames giving me my indication to enter my trades. However, I waited and waited. When I finally executed, I caught the last of the move (and the beginning of the uptrend) and got stuck in my trades. I failed to have my stop loss in place and I was beginning to feel anxious. Instead of melting down though, I reviewed liquidity levels and order flow once more and realized that it was all part of the pullback. But it was not 100% that we would reverse back in my direction. I decided to hold. This trade I took was not ideal and ultimately, was at the worst time of entering. Instead of having risk management in place for my SL, I allowed that trade to keep pulling back (way past where my SL should have been) and finally the trade came back into my favor. During this trade I even added more to my loser, which helped me with my average cost but not good risk management at all. Looking back, I really feel like this trade was pure luck. To give perspective, we see on the /NQ chart between 7:20AM to 8:20AM PST we are in a solid downtrend. I had entered around 8:40AM for a short position and it continued to the upside for another 10-15 minutes before finally breaking low.
Overall, my psychology was centered and when I did feel anxiousness, I allowed myself to calm down while being down hundreds of dollars. My trading mindset still continues to feel calm and collected while writing my journal. Performance wise, I failed to follow my plan with having a stop loss in place. This SL would have not only managed my risk/losses better, but allowed me to enter in a better trade in the future. I hesitated with entering my trades as I saw levels being broken so I rather save my capital for a confident trade, but I fear I waited to long. It might have been better to sit out of my trading today. I added to a loser which could have made things worse as the trade could have went further against me to blow my account. I did not have control over my risk. I cannot think in terms of could've, would've, should've; regardless of ending the day in the green, I take this as another lesson learned.
BEFORE TRADING:
I knew there was important news being released at 7AM PST and more releases throughout the day. So when I woke up, I completed my usual routine and allowed myself MORE time to focus in on my psychology. I played Rande Howell as always while cleaning the room and preparing lunch for the day. By the time I turned on my laptop, I reviewed my charts and some demand zones were broken through. This gave me indication that we are in a serious, strong downtrend. I went into the market with possible plays but also patience since it is a high news day.
DURING/AFTER TRADING:
I did not trade this account for a while as the news was greatly affecting the market. At roughly 8:30AM I entered into my first trade and caught my minimum 8-pt move on the NQ with 1 contract. I don't typically write the number of points/profits in my journal as I don't find it necessary, but I find this example to be a solid play to refer to when really wanting good examples of my own strat and how I WANT/WILL be as a trader. Of course I include my loser plays in my journal as examples of learnings to educate myself on. This felt like a great setup as it hit different parts of my strategy: consolidation of price in a small but consistent uptrend from the bottom, break/retest of this area, 9/21 EMA crossover, EMA spacing, 1M demand zone hit perfectly for a bounce and push into this break, TP was at next 5M supply zone so I TP right before. A friend told me that their ICT Fair Value Gap is at 13061 so that provided an extra outside conviction of this play. This first trade I executed without hesitation, and I am glad I did not rush this morning to force any trades as something appeared before me when it wanted to. I feel calm and taking more breaks from the screen today to avoid gambling any trades. I felt FOMO missing the entire short drop on this specific account, but grateful I had my other accounts to execute on it and it is more than okay to miss an opportunity as there will always be more.
Overall, I felt I had my performance and psychology in place to avoid gamble/FOMO trades and strawing from my plan.
BEFORE TRADING:
I felt absolutely great waking up today. Everything aligned with my mindset that I have no issues today. I reviewed my charts and updated as needed.
DURING/AFTER TRADING:
I became quickly frustrated due to a personal thing outside of trading. When I first started to trade, I felt perfectly fine. My first trade went red for $68 loss. My second trade made back the loss and I was in profit for the day as it was a 1:3 RR trade. I was ready to close out of Rithmic when I saw another potential setup but needed more confluences to enter. At this very moment I had a personal issue arise and I was not seeing the market clear anymore. I should have recognized my emotions and turned off my laptop, but I did not and I did not wait for the confluences to add up, instead I let the emotions take over and I did not care how I was trading anymore. I kept adding to my losing trade at this point and in that moment, I did not care if I blew the account. It is crazy to me because my trading in all my other accounts prior to this moment were on point and I felt in flow with the market. But all it took was 1 thing to throw me completely off and I did not have the self control to handle/react better towards it.
Overall, the day was starting off on point until I let something outside of trading take control of how I was reacting and it greatly cost me my performance. I don't plan to reset this account and I don't plan to continue the April trading journal challenge anymore. Thank you for those choosing to read my material.
