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Hi all! After a few months of lurking I have decided to start my own journal to hold myself accountable.
About Me:
-I have been investing with stocks and options for 4 years.
-I began learning about daytrading just under a year ago.
-The order of events in the past year have gone something like this:
-Learned the basics of using indicators.
-Became overconfident, traded live, and lost money.
-Returned to paper-trading.
-Decided that I just needed to switch to renko and range bars and then I would be profitable.
-That didn't work either.
-Felt utterly defeated and lost.
-Discovered a thread on ForexFactory called "Ratios & Harmonics: A Different Way to Trade.
-Wiped all of the indicators off my screen and started from the ground floor basics of price action, swing/wave analysis,
and harmonics.
-Began papertrading again and broke even two consecutive months.
-Decided to go live but trade VERY small as a stepping stone between papertrading and full-position futures trading.
-Currently finishing off my second month live and as of now it appears I will end May in the green.
Goals for this Journal:
To report my trades, reasoning, and results each day to hold myself accountable to my trade plan.
Ok lets start with the daily chart. I apply a volume profile and draw in the obvious areas of low volume. Note how price has reacted in these low volume areas in the past. Volume analysis gives me a clue where I can expect price to potentially change direction.
Next I move into the 15 minute chart and add any additional areas of interest that were not visible on the daily chart.
15 minute areas are less important to me than daily and as such I make the lines thinner for the 15m areas.
Back to the daily chart to note important levels. Recent Highs, Lows, Gaps, etc.
Now I begin to analyze swing structure on the 15 minute chart. I don't give much value to fibonacci retracements unless they correspond with areas I already have noted. In this case the two line up: a 61.8% with a low volume area off the Daily. My expectation based off this observation is for a new low beneath the recent swing low.
Now I'll enable extended trading hours to see what has happened overnight. In this case we have broken through a low volume area with little participation from the bulls in an area I would expect to see them. My interpretation of this is that the bulls are not interested in buying up these prices. I would expect the bears to push price down to the next low volume area (15m) before seeing the bulls enter with any strength.
That's it for my pre-market analysis. I will post today's trades at the end of the session and explain my setups and trade management!
So price filled the gap up to Friday's low and then immediately broke the previous swing low. I entered with a limit order at the 50% because I haven't discovered a better entry trigger yet and the 50% offers advantageous risk:reward.
Initial stop was placed above the previous swing high.
I took some heat on this trade and because of that, the likelihood of my original target being achieved seemed to decrease.
I closed 2/3 out by aggressively trailing as soon as we had broken the previous swing low.
I trailed the remaining 1/3 loosely until I saw price react bullishly off the 50% of the day. I then closed the trade with aggressive trailing.
As of the time of this posting it seems I managed the trade very well.
Ok so this morning I had a bearish bias.
For some reason I took a really crappy long entry in the middle of the range. Thankfully was able to scratch the trade.
I then positioned myself short from the top part of the range anticipating a break through the bottom of the range. When we bounced off lows I decided to close 2/3 of my trade. The other 1/3 got hit around breakeven. Small win.
Trade 3: we broke out of the range to the upside but with little conviction. (or so I thought) Filled a limit sell and was stopped out less than a minute later. At least there was no suffering! Small loss.
Trade 4: At this point I was kicking myself for passing on both the huge winning short and winning long. As soon as a valid setup appeared I took the long without hesitation. I was expecting price to move higher (it eventually did), but I was already into overtime and mentally done with trading. Closed out for a medium sized win.
Total for the day:
2 wins
1 loss
1 scratch
+.4R
As usual my analysis was better than my execution. What I did well:
Allowed myself to adapt to the market when my original expectation of a bearish breakout did not come true.
Managed my exits well to maximize gains without exiting too early. What I could do better:
Not take trades on impulse that don't fit my rules!
Take ALL trades that DO fit my rules without hesitation or second guessing myself!
Today was very rough. WAY too many trades, poor analysis, and poor execution/trade management.
What I did well:
All of my entries were acceptable and mostly according to my rules.
What I could do better:
Enter trades with no hesitation.
-Despite having taken 8 trades today, I did hesitate pulling the trigger on a couple of entries that would have been winners.
Manage my emotions so as to not cut winning trades short at the first minuscule sign of trouble.
-Follow my rules for exiting positions.
Accept missed trades instead of chasing price.
Results
3 wins
2 losses
3 BE's
More or less break-even at the end of the day.
Maybe this is just cherry-picking but in reviewing my session this is the only trade from today that fits my rules in a textbook fashion... I passed this one because price had found support at the VWAP, nearly to the tick and I felt that there was potential for buyers to take the market to a new high of day. In this case the bears decided they didn't care about VWAP, and price leaped off a cliff. This trade would have risked .19 per share on 300 shares ($57) and would have raked in $84 at the exit levels I indicated. Oh well! Tomorrow is a new day and I will apply myself as best I can.
Trade 1
Market gapped down big overnight, I expected to see bulls come in to at least partially fill the gap. As soon as we got a bullish break of the previous swing high I entered. Immediately stopped out. Price moved down so quickly that my stop slipped by 7 cents. -1.08R
Trade 2
Well the long didn't work, so let's reverse. Trade went in my favor initially but did not break the previous swing low, which is my first target usually. I tightened up my stops and got out of this one with a small loss. -.12R
Trade 3
I still believed in the long and we had some strong bullish action which broke the previous swing high that I had used for Trade 2's initial stop. I believed the bulls had the market by the balls here and entered at the 50%. Price meandered its way lower and tagged my stop. -.66R
What I did well:
Despite today being a tremendous losing day I feel that I did a few things well:
-I entered without hesitation. (maybe a little too trigger-happy today. I am prone to bouncing between extremes.)
-I trusted my trade and made no attempt to move my stops in a fashion that violated my rules. (I probably could have tightened my stops on Trade 3 to minimize the loss if anything.)
-Trade management side of things was dialed in today. (not much to manage when your initial stop gets hit.)
-Deciding to quit early after the equivalent of 2 full stop outs as per my rules: Daily Limit.
What I NEED to IMPROVE:
-Entry criteria. The past two days I have taken unwarranted trades with predictably undesirable outcomes in an attempt to eliminate my hesitation.
-The past two days have been my worst trading days in the past two weeks. I believe this is because there have been
no reference areas that price has interacted with such as low volume nodes or previous days highs/lows/closes.
-Deciding not to trade when my analysis is not accurate.
Overall I feel the past two days, while difficult, have been very valuable. My goal for tomorrow is to focus on a high quality setup and execute on that setup with no hesitation.
I've annotated the chart with my thoughts and reasoning, instead of writing those reasons in this post. I think it is easier to see, at a glance, what I was thinking with an annotated chart.
What I Did Well:
-Exercised Patience.
-Proper analysis.
-Recognized that I missed the short opportunity and that getting into a move late is chasing price.
-Took the first opportunity that presented itself with no hesitation.
-Managed both trades objectively and without fear or greed.
What I Could do Better:
-Properly size ALL positions. The second trade had a 20 cent stop and I entered with 200 shares which is a $40 risk or .62R! I do not have a grading system for my entries - all entries should be as close to 1R as possible. In this case, the trade ended up being a huge winner and would have been 40% larger if I had sized my position correctly.
Results:
2 wins (+.11R and +1.62R)
+1.73R
Results for Week: (5/20-5/24)
8 wins
6 losses
4 BE
Total Win: 4.45 Avg Win: .55R
Total Loss: 3.43 Avg Loss: .57R
NET: +1.02R
Reflection on Week:
I had a few excellent trading days and a few subpar sessions this week. Focusing on the days that I had great performance allows me to see that I DO have what it takes to be a professional trader. Looking at the subpar days reminds me that it will take a LONG time to get there. My analysis was great this week but my execution on that analysis was lacking. Most of my losing trades were results of NOT waiting for my analysis to play out and taking shots in the dark. Three of my four break-even trades should have been winners but were not managed correctly. These are all areas I can improve next week.