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Hello xelaar, thanks for visiting my journal! In general, I have found that I prefer earlier entries in anticipation of a breakout rather than later entries right around the area of the breakout. This is mainly a function of risk control; looking to keep losses manageable. The downside is getting chopped around sometimes.
If I get into a move early, I will usually use the breakout of the trading range as a place to add to the position. This way if I do catch a decent sized move I do it on double size whereas the majority of the losing trades are on single size.
Today had an upward bias, with a slow-moving trend that lasted most of the trading day followed by a quick breakout move that I managed to miss.
The morning session was choppy, with failed breakouts to both the upside and downside. Around 10:20 a move to the upside finally gained some traction, and then price traded in a narrow range with a few opportunities for reentry into the trend. Finally just before 1:00 p.m. price finally popped to the upside, with a huge volume bar that is typically associated with the end of a move in gold. This day, in the abstract, should have been solidly profitable, with any losses from the choppy period offset by long trades later in the day.
My actual result was a net gain of 19 ticks. This was disappointing and the main reason for the underperformance was that I simply did not take the trade that would have led to the one good quick move of the day. If I had been in that trade, I would have known to take profits at some point during that bar due to the surge in volume. So that one move that I missed would have turned an average day into a big day.
I have no real excuse for missing that trade. I just took my eyes off the screen and wasn't focused, and by the time I looked back it was over. Lapse in concentration.
This was a rough trading day for me, and has been difficult to post because I felt a really crappy trader by the end of the day. I had to fight the urge to pretend that the day never happened. Avoidance gets you nowhere in trading. So after taking the night to calm down I took another look at the day's trading to come up with some constructive lessons.
The day's price action was fairly choppy, with only one decent sized move. If traded properly, my system would have caught that move, so profitability on the day would depend on (1) whether I took that trade; (2) whether I took profits at an appropriate time; and (3) how badly I got chopped up in the ensuing price action.
My actual result on the day was a net loss of 44 ticks. This poor result is especially troubling given that I did in fact take the profitable long trade in the morning and also took profits during the exhaustion bar. At that point I was solidly up on the day.
But then I proceeded to give the profits away bit by bit on several unsuccessful attempts to get in on a resumption of the trend. These losses to some extent are forgivable; however, I also flipped to a short trade during the mid-day chop, with really no justification. So that was a bad call.
My worst mistake, however, was overtrading after it became clear that conditions were choppy. I could feel myself starting to go on "tilt"; I consciously tracked my thinking as it became distorted. I kept thinking, "I just missed that move; need to get in early on the next one." I became so hyper-focused on every tick in the current price bar that I lost perspective on the bigger picture, which was that price was consolidating and basically directionless for most of the day. So I would get in just in time for price to reverse on me, again and again, with only a few small profitable trades to offest the chop.
I need to be much more disciplined about stopping myself from trading when I can feel myself going on tilt. Should just walk away at that point, take a break if not quit for the day. It is very difficult to trade well when angry about previous losses and missed opportunities.
Today was a better day in terms of process as well as results. I can breathe a bit easier after my awful performance yesterday.
This morning started out with a gap up and some price action that seemed to want to continue higher. After a brief false breakout, price instead collapsed, filled the gap, and produced a few opportunities for re-entry in the downtrend. I would expect a day like this to be solidly profitable, with a large gain in the big down move perhaps offset by losses on a long trade at the beginning of the day and some chop during reentry.
My results pretty much came in line with expectations today, with a net gain of 29 ticks. I took the available signals and rode the winners much farther than the losers, which is consistent with my plan. One criticism is that I exited fully out of the large down move too early and missed another 20-30 potential ticks.