I tried shorting MES three times and got lucky finally. Possibly because I went to bed after placing my orders and didn't stand in the way



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P.S. The middle trade is where I used Stop Limit SL order instead of stop order to minimise my loss.

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February P&L is not as choppy as I presumed

Though it's a far cry from my annual 6 digit goal, I atleast got 4 digits this month.

March 1 2023 Wednesday.

No clear edge today as we are opening @ Y-close.

If I squint hard, I see a slight edge for bears. I am more inclined to bet on them as they were able to push the price down, once again, from 4000 area.

The question is whether to go full size or half. Not sure yet. 3 minutes to decide.

Short SPY.

1/2 size @ open 3965 and then scaled in 1/2 @ 3975.

Seems to be working so far. Will stay till EOD.

Looking at opportunities to short using MES. The day is still young.

Tricky day to trade due to the chop and compressed ATR but managed to come out green. This is mainly due to my decision to scale in my SPY entries and lucky to short the top. My 1st scale out was also at a good location.

My second attempt to scale in wasn't successful and the expected bearish continuation didn't happen.

I was also fortunate to grab 15 points from my MES short from 3963.

March 2 2023 Thursday Prep

Currently ES is languishing below Y-L with a big gap down. If this persists until RTH open, then my signals are quite bearish.

I will short the open with 100 SPY and hold till EOD.

I will look for any bounce to close the gap to scale in with MES. Similar to yesterday actually.

P.S. I did make a mistake yesterday in assuming 200 DMA was breached. It wasn't. However, today we are opening below that important mark and my strategy will change from tomorrow.

Short 100 SPY from open - as per plan.

Short MES 3946 - as per plan.

Taking heat - as per plan

My short trade did NOT work today. I executed as per my prep and hence no regrets.

However, I have 2 reflections or comments to make.

First is loss reduction. Though I'm holding my losing position till the end of the day currently, I am constantly looking for ways to minimise damage when price goes against me. Taking heat was part of the plan as gap closure was expected. However, when new high was made after gap closure, that's a sign that reversal was unlikely and bullish close was on the cards. Hence I closed my MES short from 3946 @ 56 and took 10 pts loss. In the future, I will implement the same for my SPY positions as well. Eventually, I'm hoping to reverse my bias intraday but I'm not there yet.

Second is the actual signal. I already made a note that 200 DMA is a HUGE part of my signal generation. When price closed above 200 DMA but opens below it the following day, it poses dilemma.

I considered the closing price above 200 DMA and the signal was quite bearish as below.



However, had I assumed the opening price below 200 DMA, signal would have been very bullish as below.



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Not an excuse for my loss but an acknowledgment that I should be careful or skip trading during 'changing seasons'.

Strangely, it increases my confidence in my system and signals.

March 3 2023 Friday Prep

Signals are bullish as we open gap up above Y-H.

Instead of going full long, I'm planning to go 1/2 size long from RTH open. Since 4000 is a strong resistance, I expect some kind of response by sellers and an attempt to close the gap. Then I may scale in 1/2 size. I'm even considering reversing to short should the gap closure happens with ease.

There are 2 kinds of risk. First is lack of pullback and ending up with 1/2 size on winning position. I'm ok with that. Second is a deeper pullback which is statistically more likely after we had a bullish engulfing day. Hence the above contemplation of short but my long should fail first.

Another breakeven week.

Though it's frustrating sometimes as it feels like I'm spinning my wheels, I also acknowledge that I'm laying the foundation for future success.

There are certain habits/practices I need to modify. For example, I went full size yesterday and kept my (out-sized) loss till the end. I had only half size today and hesitant to add to my winner.

So far, I made NO attempts to cut my losers or reverse my direction intra-day. Since I have several months of testing and have huge confidence in my system, I'm going to start tweaking it. The focus for this month will be 'beating the system' especially in cutting losses.

One thing is for sure. I'm loving it and I'm going to be in this business for a VERY long time.