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Thanks @mgcharl! You are right, I got a bit lazy this afternoon and I want to make sure I get back to more diligent journaling in my new journal that I'll be starting this weekend. I appreciate you calling that out, I don't like to slide away from good habits.
If last week's lessons were about patiently coming back from early losses in the day, this week's lesson was about how easy it is to acknowledge your keys and then toss them out the window as you get caught up in the market. And getting overly-biased for one single direction (bullish these last couple days). Monday and Tuesday felt good, then things started getting really sloppy by Wednesday, right after I started thinking about how my keys seemed to be working out well.
- bar 19 definitely had a "tempo' or urgency to it that I can't really express well as just pure price-action, it goes back to my own "price-action" trading that I started out with before knowing anything, it seemed like the pace was picking up for a potential uptrend. I think I was just lucky on this one.
- the second trade, bar 20, seemed to me to be one of the best setups i'd seen all week, we had a strong bull trend bar, I could not imagine placing my stop below bar 19 so I just set it to 16-ticks wide which is about as far as I'm comfortable with for the time-being. I maybe shouldn't have taken this trade for that reason, therefore, maybe this trade was just lucky too.
- trade 3 was ego-driven nonsense, the type of trade that I try to avoid. I have no excuses to make.
This weekend I'll be setting up a new journal over in the elite section, I'm going to try and start defining my risks, goals, setups, etc....basically all of these things in a more coherent, structured fashion. I sometimes rush due to work, so in those cases i should just focus in the evening after things quiet down and devote more time before posting.
I am a bit too results-focused I feel. I am trying to be patient but I am also trying to push my progress forward aggressively. Its often a double-edged sword!
It would be nice if progress was linear and clean, but we are human. So it's important to recognize the trend. As a casual observer, I've noticed that your winners have been bigger lately. And I know that's something you have been working on...to make the bull case on your progress. Keep up the good work amigo!
I think there were a lot of positives this month so far, no doubt. I am finding through trial and error that I just need to find the small things that work and stay small for a while till I internalize some of these things and they become second-nature so I can adopt some more skills. I think whatever level a trader is at, they just need to grind away for a while at that level before they advance. I know it sounds obvious but I am starting to see so much more clearly the types of "levels" there are and what things need to be worked on at least for the levels i'm at.
I think something changes once I get into the minis, I make more questionable decisions because things seem to "speed up", whereas with the e-micros, the live market actually feels like it "slows down" for me and I can think and execute. Its the strangest thing, but I think you've got to somehow "earn" the bigger trades on the bigger products through that process of grinding out the mistakes, the bigger contracts will only magnify the mistakes.
@Salao your journal is really inspiring to me because I see you built consistency and then your trades seemed to start making bigger gains more and more. Its a great model to follow! Hope you get more trades in these upcoming weeks
Thanks for the kind words! I think we all learn from each others journals. I've often wanted to emulate your very deliberate approach and I try to get more snax-like in that regard. . The 'think and execute' bit is what I have been focusing on the most. It seems the profitable guys see the market clearly and understand exactly what is happening most of the time. And the 'understanding' is what keeps them from making mistakes. So I'm really working hard to figure it out to get that clarity. The P/L line will let us know when we are there. There will be no question when we get there!
I haven't had the guts to take a swing at the bigger contract. But, IMHO, there's nothing wrong with stepping up to the plate every now and then and trying to smack one out of the park. Like you said, the bigger contracts magnify the mistakes. I think that's true. Sometimes mistakes need to be magnified to get fixed. Sometimes we hit it out of the park!
OK I'm done rambling...pour out a nice IPA and enjoy your weekend!
This cycle-000004 ended on the 90th-day of my journaling, which is a big round number (and not that many days).
I don't need to man-splain to you how much this community has meant to me (it has meant so much! ), so with some of the feedback I've gotten from other members of the community whom I respect, as well as my own thoughts on how to best keep moving forward in futures trading I've decided that I'm going to be starting a journal in the elite section.
But, I may give a condensed update here from time to time as time permits. Feel free to hit me up if you want to chat about anything.