Grantx 

Sorry my mistake, I misinterpreted your original post. Im an expert at reading things incorrectly and jumping to conclusions. btw, great journal. I read an earlier post where you mentioned this would be your last attempt. It says a lot about a persons character when they pick themselves up off the floor and keep fighting. I really hope you make it this time. Ill be following along. Best of luck!

Haha no worries! I was really trying hard to find where you were coming from, I try to explain things as clearly as possible. Probably in too much detail.

I appreciate the compliment. I really do feel like I have everything in my arsenal along with the experience to make it happen. So if this doesn't work out I'm just not sure what else I could possibly learn that would help me make the turn. Very excited for the future though.

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So today is the kind of day that gives me great hope moving forward. After having one of the biggest drawdowns of recent past, I was able to trade all the way back to a small profit on the day. I could feel in my gut that I was close to having to stop for the day, but once that feeling starts creeping in, I know the move of the day is just around the corner. (I know this because I can't tell you how many times I have quit at max loss, just to have the next move go right by without me that would have saved my butt.)

Today we started with a reasonable plan based on the overnight move and structure. You never know how much of a reaction you are going to get at M-VWAP intraday, but the previous test told me it was definitely a level worth watching. Being much more aggressive in profit taking around that level would have gone a long way in cushioning my early losses on the day.

Essentially what we had today was an obvious balance area that formed, a B/O lower with 2 attempts, a P/B to the day's developing value, finally the break lower, then a total return to value, ending in a pretty balanced day. It was nice not having the EURO to distract me, as I did just fine struggling on my own lol. Main issue today is that it was a rare multidirectional day(hardest to trade), and I was not patient enough with my entries. Nor did I scale back risk even though I was frustrated, and became unsure of direction. I have to save enough bullets to be able to trade the move of the day without having such a large drawdown. Fortunately we ended the day ok, and also saved our week.

Here I have highlighted today's main bracketing areas, and our first major target, a previous naked POC on the TPO.


And here you can see the mess that today was, chasing the market around instead of being patient for good low risk entries. I like the fact that I scaled in though. What was most important today to note was that price was never accepted above ETH -1SD after the break down below M-VWAP, nor did we get the TPO reversal. Should have stayed small when betting on the reversal till we cleared those hurdles. I did catch the move back to RTH VWAP at the end of day, but with the huge consolidation and volume, I could have easily scaled that trade up. Wasn't willing to risk much of what I had worked so hard for though.


Hope everyone has a blessed and wonderful weekend! See ya Monday!

Sometimes you get lucky, sometimes the opposite. Today was an opposite day. Had a nice profit going, was positive on the day then WHAM! 100 point reversal on surprise news. Thank goodness for stops and liquidity. Didn't get hurt fortunately. This is the risk I take trading the GBP around the BREXIT, but with increased volatility comes increased opportunity.

Main struggle lately is execution. Execution costs are way too high, and if I am getting positioned correctly from the beginning then they should be fairly minimal. So establishing some rules for different scenarios, and will be keeping a close eye on this going forward.

Bigger picture pre-market is that we were balancing in Friday's value area, so this general calls for us to take the break out away from value. We opened in balance, and in value so we start with no directional conviction. But you can see the two balance areas today highlighted in today's split profile. You can see the attempt to break higher, then the true break lower, followed by the rip higher on news.


So today the market was balancing around the ETH 1SD at the open, with buyers underneath seeming to hold the market. So I entered there as this is considered an extreme. The market will generally play ping pong back and forth around the 1st standard deviation levels, so a fade here is generally good risk:reward, as there are only two options. The market will hold and reverse, or continue and B/O. I started scaling in as we moved higher, and more buy volume came in increasing my conviction. Took a small profit at the opposite extreme, then re-entered as the market started to drift back toward my original entry. We got a strong break to the downside, reversing the TPO, so this calls for us to jump in short.

Break outs are a funny thing, you never know if the market will continue right away, or if it will pull back and give you a shot at a better price. This is not a perfect science, so setting some general rules, and doing it long enough will help guide you. Well I needed to enter full size right away short which I normally do, but after getting burned Friday on the reversals I decided to wait for price.(Bad idea and that is why we need rules!) Got an ok average but didn't get full size, and then went back and forth entering exiting as I felt like the market was too short and needed to trade higher first. Completely goofed all that execution due to lack of patience and focus on bigger picture other than I knew I wanted to be short. Finally had a decent profit when the market reversed on news.


So we live to fight another day, with a little something learned. Besides making money, these are my two main goals EVERY day.

So today we had an easy to spot reversal type day. I am still relatively new to trading these types of days, so I had a little trouble sizing up. Focusing on solid R:R areas are key to getting past that hurdle.

One thing I remembered today while trading is a concept I either read or came up with a while back. If you are having trouble getting the targeted PB entry that you want, you probably need to be more aggressive in your entry strategy although it is generally more uncomfortable, but momentum is obviously in your direction. And if you are having no problem getting into the market, although this feels better, if you have patience you probably can get a better entry, and you should be more conservative as you may very well be wrong or at a disadvantageous price.

I for one need to do a better job of this, as I tend to do the opposite.

So today as per the TPO, pre-open I observe the H period, and the I starts at 7 a.m. You can see the H period's momentum is obviously to the downside, and the market has run away from value continually in the ON session. This should immediately get you leaning counter trend for the day. I cannot tell you how long I fought this natural tendency of the market, just because I was not aware of the reversion to the mean factor. So today we tested short on a pull back with a smaller position, just to test the strength of downward momentum.(Just because the market will likely mean revert does not mean there is a specific scenario it should do it). Well the market reversed, and we quickly reversed as momentum shifted higher. We then balanced in value below ETH VWAP, and then popped higher where we covered our position at the target and HOD, which was confluence weekly -1SD/ETH 1SD. When the market is trending, you must expect larger TF traders to step in at levels that make sense for them to test the short/long.


Still struggled a bit with execution, but overall number was lower today, and I was much more aware of it during live trading. All positive developments. Was trying to get back to full size at the -1SD confluence area just below, but demand under RTH VWAP proved too much and we slammed 30 points higher. Nicely profitable day.


Hope everyone had a great day!

Yay another learning lesson! So today we had a reversal day, but one I was not prepared for and it showed. It really sucks to get direction wrong, but it's part of the learning process. Use that information you missed to help make you better!

So ON we got rejection from W VWAP, and so I expected that to be a continuation to the downside, instead of letting the market tell me what it wanted to do, then the most important part, me listening to what it is saying!

Market immediately fell sharply into solid support when I sat down so I didn't get a chance to get short from an ideal location. So we went short on a break lower of W -1SD, and VAL, which should quickly tell us if momentum is in our favor or not. Well we quickly exited that trade as momentum reversed to the upside, but I literally had four important levels above that could immediately reverse the market. So I ignored the fact that we bounced from RTH -1SD/VAL confluence then slowly grinded higher against our position before the B/O and sweeping our stop. Truth is there was no easy trade here, and I am glad I reduced risk when we started consolidating above RTH VWAP. The thing most frustrating today was that bigger picture told me there was a possibility of reversal, and I just did not see it. Was not prepared for the reversal at all and that sucks.

So here were the signs. 60 point drop from the highs ON through yesterday's entire value range, VAH to VAL. This combined with the double bottom at VAL/RTH -1SD confluence was all we needed to test the long. Even if we didn't take the long we should have been aware of it, and ready to switch long to recover the day. Instead we end with a midsized loss. Lame. This type of day also does not happen that often, so now we have a record of it.

No charts today. Took a small loss on a long attempt at news today. The market broke higher, reversed lower, then higher. I was prepared to buy on any PB to reasonable support, but just never got it.

I know I mentioned on a previous post that sometimes you have to step up your aggressiveness to get into the market, and today that would have worked out. But I also think there is nothing wrong with sitting tight and following your strategy as best as you can. That means you will not catch every single move, and that is ok. We mitigate some of our risk by trading our strengths, and doing what we are good at. I am sure over time I may improve on momentum moves, but honestly I am just not very good at it.

Realized yesterday that if I drop my daughter off 5 minutes earlier to school on Thursday's that I can be home in time to catch the usual 8:30 report, and actually trade the day instead of taking the whole day off. My rules state that I don't trade prior to a big report anyways unless we break out of balance on good volume, so that could work. I miss a lot of good potential days from taking off Thursdays, and yesterday was no different. Would have been my best day this week.

Also one more note, and one of the biggest things I have stumbled across this week is actually using the previous day's profile more intensively during the day to help pinpoint entries/exits. There are tons of times that I can see looking back through charts where we reversed from a ledge, or continually bounced from a ledge that was in between my normal VWAP levels, that would have helped me exit more efficiently. Plus we can see exactly how the day is rotating through the previous' days profile. I think it will help, but only time will tell!

Hope everyone has a great weekend!

One of the most important things I do is a weekly Review on Sunday nights. It really helps me drill down to the major issues I struggled with during the week, which usually helps me also find the reason "why". Every day last week seemed to be a battle, and at the time I wasn't sure why. Well over the weekend it became more obvious that we were actually bracketing, and when that is happening you don't get much of a heads up on the direction front. So this is actually good, as it helped me realize that during that future scenario I need to be sizing down, and waiting for the market to reveal its hand and try to jump on board the move with the most volume/conviction. Last week I lost about a third of what I made the week prior. Not bad at all, and nothing to be concerned about, I would say that for me it's actually something to be proud of, as the week prior was nothing special.

So last night as I was going over the charts I noticed we were back at the very top of the bracket, and the following morning we would probably find one of two scenarios. We broke out of the bracket and would be bullish, or we would likely roll over and start heading back towards the bottom.


So we actually opened up around the mid point of the bracket where monthly VWAP was located, and after moving 110 points lower ON, even if we ultimately were going lower, probabilities would state that we needed to go higher first. So we entered long on a partial position, and started to monitor progress as the market moved higher. More randomness as we moved higher, broke down for a DB, then launched higher for the move of the day. My ultimate final targets if we got there was today's open, and last night's naked VPOC. Always gotta be prepared if the market decides to run.


Here you can see my positioning for the day, executions were reduced although still high, which partly cannot be corrected if the market changes direction with conviction we have to follow. Only goal is to improve a little day by day, and focus on the process. We were able to trust our gut a lot today. Love starting the week profitable, especially on a tough day.

Alright, so we are still in balance on the daily, and doing my best to push trades while also accumulating profit. Mixed results today, but we came out ahead, and learned a couple of things.

ON the market completely reversed the progress of the longs from yesterday's session, all the way back to M-VWAP. Well we bounced from there back to ETH VWAP/VAL confluence, so that was our first level to trade from to get a feel for what the market wanted to do. Well we traded very nicely, what you would expect from a trend that has longevity. Breaking through levels, then PB to re-test before moving lower. Well I got a couple of scale in/outs on the way down, but I did not peel off one of my main holding contracts once we tested M-VWAP in case it reversed the trend. Which it did. Then the reversal was a slow grind higher into yesterday's value, so of course I did not get in full size, exited early, then fought the trend. Definitely did not take full advantage of the day, but man I was ready to kill it if the market continued lower initially.
Lots of things to be happy about, while we continue to learn the nuances of trading based on MP.


Main thing I missed was the slow grind higher through all the levels, this is exactly what you want to see when the market is reversing through levels you would normally enter from. I have to just trust the reversal, I could have reduced my size, but I should never have just one contract on when the market reverses. I should have let the market show it's hand when it wanted to finally reverse, a slow grinding market can literally move in one direction forever as new faders come in and supply fuel to the slow moving market. When the market did finally lose momentum, we were patient for one more final push in our direction. I did very well in waiting for the market to come to my levels to enter vs. entering on the B/O, so my risk was minimal. So mixed feelings on the day, but am still learning to trade reversals like this. Got the crash course lately as I have not seen one easy directional day in weeks it feels like. Happy to walk away profitable.


I would say based on the fact that we have been maintaining above last week's VWAP close, we may get a push higher from here and start a new bull trend on the daily. But that is all speculation till we B/O of the top of the bracket.

Rock n roll baby! Ok so biggest winning day so far since switching to the MP style trading. I was able to get positioned full size early, then ride it all the way up scaling in/out as we moved higher/balanced/moved higher, etc.

As I mentioned yesterday, we did indeed break out of balance overnight, then pulled back to value this morning. Perfect opportunity to get long. Got in once we crossed VWAP to the upside, and the market never looked back. Finally an easy directional day with a good range. We had news at 8:30 so we didn't take any position trades before then.

First shot is break out of the balance on the daily chart.


Next is obvious PB/support at Y VPOC


And entries on the day.


I have been maintaining an aggressive trading regimen while waiting for range expansion, but maybe a better strategy is to have some sort of target in mind on the day when the market is in balance. Range expansion is usually accompanied by a trending market so that would make sense. Hope everyone had a great day!

So just a quick note on Thursday since I didn't post a journal entry, but it was an important day.

I ended with a mid sized loss yesterday essentially due to my lack of morning preparation. I woke up later than usual since I knew I didn't have to trade till 8:30 due to news. I take my daughter to school Thursday's due to wife's work schedule, and just recently decided that if I dropped her off a few minutes earlier I could arrive at home in time to trade for the remainder of the morning.

Well cocky little me thought I could trade the day with virtually no morning preparation. And even though my instincts on direction were correct, I had no conviction to follow through with my trade ideas, and ended up taking small losses fighting the trend until I decided to call it quits. Fortunately mother market is always there to check you when you think you have outwitted her.

So that is the focus of this post, and seriously bled into my market prep this morning which I will go into on next post. My recent improvement, which is getting better by the day, is solely based on the fact that I have improved my ability to read contextual clues of the market better, then position for the most likely move from a good R:R standpoint. That's it. Nothing else has changed.

It is 100% about me being able to fully commit to my trading ideas, even though they are sometimes wrong(actually 60% wrong if you look at my stats). And once you are fully committed to the trade idea, then you have to commit to seeing that idea through, and perhaps even push that idea to the best of your ability. On the other end, you need to structure your trades so that when you are wrong, you can recognize it quick and get out.

When I put in the work first thing(which is not a lot, it's really about focusing on the right things) then every swing of the market has more meaning, and I can see things much more clearly as they are happening.