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Traded during lunchtime and got whipsawed. When, finally, I had my entry short I placed the wrong target order that is I placed a Sell STP instead of what I thought to be a Buy LMT. Cannot believe this, I normally never make this kind of error. My sell stop was hit and market rallied, me short 4 lots. Closed right away but instead of a nice profit took a big hit. Total loss -68t.
This happens. The show must go on. Going for a walk. Be fresh for RTH open but now I've got to be alert not to go on tilt and start revenge trading. It's going to be a challenge.
I feel a very strong urge to recover losses and make up for my bad trading. Don't want to post my losses at the end of the day so start revenge trading and dig myself further in the red. I need to solve that problem or else maybe stop journaling live if it is really starts getting in my way (besides the work). Got whipsawed again in the open. Tried to get in the market early for a bigger swing up (with trend) or down (for a gap close) but my timing was way-off. Didn't wait patiently for the obvious high probability trades like a normally do. They came later on and I could make some ticks back on 4 winners. This stimulates me to go on but maybe it's better to call it a day. Will see.
Trade 1) Short low for a gap close. Loss -11t. Should have waited for a breakdown pullback.
Trade 2) Long BOF low for a with-trend entry. Win 5t.
Trade 3) Long re-entry for continuation. Win 4t.
Trade 4) Short after wide bear bar (rejection high). Loss -34t (2x -17). Gave it too much room. Must wait for a breakout pullback.
Trade 5) Long in anticipation of breakout and continuation of the trend. Loss -10t. Very bad timed entry into resistance. Selling on prior bar.
Trade 6) Short high range after some selling occurred for move to the low. Stop outside range was hit. Loss -10t.
Trade 7) Long on BOPB for 4t. These are the trades. Price breaks out of consolidation and now it's play time.
Trade 8) Long re-entry for 6t. I scaled down to 1 contract so couldn't scale-out and let one go for a runner. That's a big mistake. This way I am not going to recover any losses made.
Trade 9) Long PB for 6t.
Trade 10) Short mean reversion for 5t.
Total 4 losses (-65t) & 6 winners (30t) for -35t.
Losses are bigger than the winners (besides giving a trade too much room and trading in a range also due to the fact that I scaled back to 1 contract).
I need to avoid the chop and wait patiently for the right setups to end in the plus.
Things weren't going that well today so I took a break and missed a lot of good opportunities, all breakout failures (BOF) to the downside (which is a good way to hop on the trend). But that's okay, easy going. Took one trade near the close in the last half hour, turned out to be the last BOF for 10t. Do this once a day with size and you can make a nice living (if you don't make stupid errors like selling instead of buying as I did this morning in the EU session).
200603_US_PM_session_trading_recap
Total for the day: -84t.
To summarize the day: some bad luck and some more bad trading. But still alive and ready to rock & roll tomorrow.
“Inside, you've got
The light to guide
Your fate decides
The world you're going to find”
We are powerless over external events except for the power we hold to determine what they mean and how we will respond.
Ernest Green, the songwriter, about the process by which he created the song:
Amor Fati came to me “very quickly and painlessly. In my experience, the best songs happen like that. If I have to work really hard on a song, it’s usually not very good. The frustrating part is waiting for an ‘easy’ song to come along.”
In other words, the muses are not in the writer’s control. They visit randomly and surprisingly, and come bearing different levels of generosity which are equally unpredictable. What is in the writer’s control, however, is the patience to wait for them and the ability to recognize their arrival.
Now translate that to trading and you get:
The trades are not in the trader's control. They visit randomly and surprisingly, and come bearing different levels of generosity which are equally unpredictable. What is in the trader's control, however, is the patience to wait for them and the ability to recognize their arrival.
Each of us has a guiding light inside us—a power to recognize the right direction, the right song, the right choice—but the world, our fate, decides when and where it puts those things in front of us for our light to shine upon so that we may see it.
I am by no means a professional trader, but I have been were you describe. Fighting through a few losing trades and then losing confidence and trying to recover those losses, taking trades that didn't fit my system just to recover those losses. What helped for me was to work on a system that defined my trades to the point that they can be programmed. There is no question about where to enter and where to exit. Studied it and made adjustments here and there. Proved to my self that even with the losses, over the long run it can squeak out a positive daily average. That doesn't mean every day is profitable. That gave me something to believe in. Some confidence taking the trade and accepting the level of risk.
I think that is indeed one of the main advantages of an automated system (with defined rules). It takes away the emotions but you have to trust and follow your system (all the way through the draw downs). I think BloodHound may be a good and helpful platform to create such a system. May be worth to spend some time on it but I like to finish this month first. I use so much things (discretionary) I think it will be difficult to mold it in some kind of system. But maybe when I simplify my rules.
One good trade is all it takes. And then one more. -Mike Bellafiore
It sometimes seems so obvious. Sold high range and closed mid-range because market was just open and a little bit slow searching for direction. Guess what, price pushed down to the low of the range (normally my target) and then all the way up to the high of the range. This is where a system clearly would have made more bucks. Look at the volume and how price acted at support. It often seems to me that big parties (or bots?) are playing around. Just have to follow them.
Some readers might think it's nonsense to look at a 30s chart (noise) but for me it displays best the action of the tape. Of course I need to place the price action in the grand scheme of things and therefore I watch the 3m & 15m.
For example this morning the ES 15m displayed a beautiful "1st cross sell" setup (Linda Raschke). I use the 1m or 30s for timing my with-trend entry and keep risk the smallest. You can even catch a bigger swing this way. Don't get lost in the minutiae of the lower time frame.
200604_ES_15m_1stXPB
p.s. you might also notice the bull flag and sell divergence at the top.
