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Frustrating day. These are the kind of days you need $200-300.
Trade 1 was premature. Still pretty far away from the 21 SMA. A little bit of a pullback. I think it would have been tough to find an entry before 7:09 that would have not been taken out by the trap in that bar.
Trade 2 was a great set up. Failed breakout, with trend, bounce of the 21 SMA 1 bar of heat, and off it goes. Felt patient with stops. As price approached $135.50 resistance from a prior day, I tightened my stop. Mistake in hindsight. The last two pull backs had been about $0.80. But for some reason I was worried about a reversal. Never got back in.
Then the frustration set in as I waited for the next pull back. After 2 hours of waiting, the closest I came was at $135 around 10am.
Trade 3 was desperation. Poor trade mentally. After three failed pushes up, I thought the price might roll over. I did only take a $15 loss, not a full loss.
Trade 4 was still me worrying about a reversal later in the day. Went long after a higher low. Come to think of it after so much down movement, the reversal is going to be rather complex, rarely a straight V reversal. So the first low was an admirable thought. But I stopped it out break even.
I considered 1 more trade around 12:06 at 134.70, but let it go.
You have to be mindful of your trading costs as you decide when to enter and exit the marketplace. Staying on the bid or offer is cheaper than taking an offer or hitting a bid. Sometimes you have to bite the bullet and take offers or hit bids, but if you can create a pattern it will save you some cash in the long run.
2 winners, 2 losers. Net $120. 48th percentile day.
Trade 1 was a break out trade, past the $134 resistance level from a prior day. Got down to $135.50 and failed. Full retrace to stop.
Trade 2 was supposed to be a failed break out after failing to take out the days then high of $137.75 at 6:36am. This move had 2 more legs up before turning back down.
Trade 3 was a failed break out off the $135.50 resistance from a prior day. I ended up tightening my stop, as price got closer to support of $134.
Trade 4 was after a second higher low. If I had been paying attention at the time, I hope I would have seen the high volume and small-range bar at 11:36am, as a clue to exit sooner.
Was a little more aggressive with stops today. Overtraded in a tight range. Was a little to bent on catching a short. After 4 trades, I shut down for the day, and missed the best move.
Trade 1 was supposed to be a pull pack. Bounce off the 21 SMA. Part way through, the broader market was not being very supportive of that trade. Price action was weak, so I flipped short. Something I should rarely do, and again indicative of overtrading.
Trade 2 was that flip. Got a good initial move. Price went into a swing low level from yesterday and failed to go further. I moved my stop to break even. Stopped out.
Trade 3 was trying to catch that short again. Failed break out above $136.50. Lower high, and towards the top of the trading range thus far in the day. Took a little heat on sideways action, then moved my stop down to BE on a good move down. Price snapped back to take out my stop, which should have been an indicator of reversal. Strong up and down move in just 3 bars (at 8:54).
Trade 4 was made ignoring the snap back. I thought I was trading a failed break out off the swing high of the day so far. That didn't 1 bar.
I kept looking for a larger move (down today) because the range seemed so tight, but in reality, I have no context for what constitutes a tight range for VFC. Is it the $1.50 I was seeing at the beginning of the day, or more, or less. I will need to look into that.
Trade 1 was hoping to play a pull back. The S&P 500 was ripping, but VFC was lagging. Thinking it would catch up, I went long. Got 1 or two bars in my favor, but stopped out full. I struggle with how to incorporate things that I observe while I trade. On paper, I rarely moved my stop after small moves. Either the trade would run, or the full stop would get hit. But, seems like I could benefit from implementing a "take heat once, but not twice rule." I guess I could go back and test my trades, to see how they would do, but that would be over 400 trades to review manually...
Trade 2 was also hoping to catch whatever was going on in the S&P (need to remember I am trading VFC, not ES). This was hoping to be a break out trade. Nothing, full stop.
Trade 3 was a little better, at least up against the $138.50 resistance from a prior day and a swing low today. Here I used a tighter $0.20 stop, rather than $0.40, and used twice the shares. Fair run. Might have exited a little higher when I saw that the penetration through $139.50 was not going to hold
Trade 4 was a with trend pullback. I ratcheted my stop tighter as price approached the $138.50 resistance level, which had proven significant.
Trade 5 (5 trades means I am overtrading) was an attempt to play off of the higher low put in at 11:15am. Market was still doing well, but VFC did not participate, so I was hoping for some catch up. Not too much hope, because I stopped out for BE.
There was some interesting price action on the 12:24am bar. Lots of bids were hit in quick succession and in size (multiple 200-400 lot trades vs the typical 100) as price bounced off the 21 SMA downward. Very well position for a breakthrough of $138.50. But it never happened. Price traded up pretty quickly after than. Someone got trapped. Was nice to see it not be me once. Wish I had the tick chart to show it.
2 winners. 2 losers. Net $210 gain. 64th percentile day.
Trade 1 was intended to be a with trend pullback off the 21 SMA. Once I saw it push into prior day's resistance of $138.50, I dropped my stop to BE.
With a higher low in place and a pretty strong reversal bar at 7:21am, I was looking for longs. But Trade 2 was just desperate and greedy. I was worried about missing the move up and made a poor entry with a tighter stop. Just needed to wait for a pull back. Wait for the pull back; if it runs away, let it - its not your trade.
Trade 3 was the pullback I was supposed to wait for. Nice bounce off the $138.5 resistance, higher low, strong reversal bar at 7:18am (after a big bearish bar at 7:15am). Was fairly patient with moving my stop after swing lows were put in place. But once price started spiking up, I became more aggressive with my stop placement. Moved my stop to be hit after I saw the high volume and mildly bearish bar at 10:36am.
Trade 4 was after a lower high and some bearish price action. Didn't seem like the uptrend was gong further. Had a $1 fall, followed by a $0.95 retrace, and a pretty quick sell off after that swing high. So I got in on a short during a tight trading way.
$138.50 has been a significant level over the past few days. When the market opened below that level, I was looking to short.
Trade 1 was a little quicker out of the box than usual. Usually I will let half an hour of bars set up before first trade. I need to look at that stat. But the trade went in my direction, and after price came back to my entry point, I moved to BE.
Trade 2 may have been ill conceived. After price failed to make a lower low at 6:57 and 7:00, I should been more weary of taking the bounce off the 21 SMA. Although if I had waited for a second retest, I likely would have shorted at 7:15. I did ratchet my stop after the first push up. So only lost half of my full stop.
Trade 3 punched straight up. As it climbed I became complacent and simply moved my stop to break even. Volume on any of the bars down was not particularly high. But my stop was about $0.08 too high. Would have been a $1 run after that.
Trade 4 was biased by what happened yesterday where there was a spike and a sell off. But today was spike and channel. Tried to play the stop tight and got whacked.
Trade 5 was a revenge trade. Convinced it was headed lower, I jumped in again. To no avail.