No Trades: Double Guessing Self

EU M5 trade missed:

GU M30 trade missed:

intro: terrible nights sleep (if any) as aggravated an old shoulder injury.  Got up did prep but didn't act on any of it, this created some self loathing so calling it a day early going to get some rest and try and get this shoulder sorted somehow.  Hopefully will get a couple of trades on tomorrow at solid S/D levels and manage the risk correctly.

lessons: 1. M5 levels are tradable provided long term S/D is far enough away to warrant a healthy target. 2. Don't trade overtired.


trading day...

R-0.7: 2 Losses

EU trade: Short with long term trend down at H4 supply , but supply level was old.

EJ trade: Short with long term trend down at H4 supply , but supply level was old.

intro: Ultimately was thinking of not trading today as had a busy day and FOMC this evening meant price might be congested.  However ultimately I want to trade and get my experience of managing risk up.  Not the best trades off old levels of supply with demand beneath but the best of a bad situation.  I could either short with the long term trend down at a longer term supply level, or buy counter trend at an old level of short term demand. So I stand by my trades.

thoughts: managed risk better today trailing first , but because price had made a decent pivot high on the M5 , and ultimately exiting on a time stop after 3 bars of no progression.  However I should have got at the end of the bar and not waited 5 mins after.

summary: Made the best of what the market offered me, these were not trades I would normally take but building experience feel most important at the moment as I need to get my trading working soon.

lessons: 1. On time stops exit immediately after the third bar, it's had plenty of time an extra 5 mins aren't going to do much! 2.  Stick to Seiden's entry parameters

today's trading:

R+0.5: 2 Break Even

EU trade: issue trailed stop too quickly meant early stop out and missing target.

EJ trade: issue trailed stop too quickly meant early stop out and missing target.

GU missed trades: a strong down trend started and my initally thought was to short rallies , but I didn't really have a strong mechanical game plan to profit it from it. Looks like shorting M30 rallies with an M5 pivot high trailing stop would have worked...

intro: Price in down trend so looking to short.  Price returned to H4 supply on both the EU and EJ for the second time which is not ideal but because the rallies were steep with no pullbacks and the RRR was approx 2:1 I entered short. However I trailed my stops too quickly and missed my targets on both.

thoughts: Price then revisted H4 supply for a third time but by this time I felt supply was fading so my plan was to get long on a pullback to demand on a smaller time frame (M30), this happened (see above navy blue rectangles) but I missed the trades as I was preoccupied. Also a nice trend down started on the GU and my plan was to short rallies but didn't really have a game plan to profit from my observation.

summary: A good read scuppered by trailing stop too tightly and not devising a game plan on the GU.

lessons: 1.implement the momentum/time stop first. 2. Use the trail stop  only on pivot highs/lows that move against trend. 3. In a trending market trade the pivot highs/lows on the M30 and use the M5 trail stop method.

today's trading...

R-0.6: 2 Losses

EU trades: Shorts at supply in downtrend, issue =  old level meant sell orders all filled.

EU trade missed: should have pre-empted old supply level failing and got in on a demand level on a smaller timeframe.

into: Poor entries, good money management.

thoughts: Recognized that the level of supply I was trading was old but doggedly took trades almost solely to practice managing risk. While missing the best trade that I had recently read about in a Seiden article.

summary: Writing a bit about this in an unpublished post on risk. Crap entry, ultimately there's more than one way to manage risk.

lessons: 1. when at (many) tested level of demand or supply , you should look to fade it on a smaller timeframe. 2. trading is about managing risk so trades should be measured by the following parameters: 1. ensuring that you are only risking x% of account (did). 2.  reducing risk (trail and time stops) in trade (did). 3.  choosing low risk, high reward entries (didn't).

morning prep:

in session trades:

R+0.2: 2 Losses, 1 Win

EJ trade: problems started here with incorrect trail stop method.

EU trade: problems continued here from EJ fear of "loss of momentum" overflow.

GU trade: correct trail method,  could've held longer but happy with breakeven for day given busy afternoon.

intro: Last night I got very overexcited thinking about managing risk and started writing a post on it.  One new method I thought of was tracking trend bars highs or lows with trade as a trailing stop method.  I implemented this on the EJ trade, it got stopped out early, made me doubt momentum in the EU trade because of the high correlation between the EU and EJ, which made me exit the EU discretionary. However I managed to hold the GU and use the correct M5 pivot high trail method and clawed back into the black.

thoughts: NA

summary: All started with using the incorrect trail stop method, but all fixed with the correct trail stop method.

lesson: You trade momentum, so you must track momentum moves (pivot highs/lows) when trailing stop, albeit in a smaller time frame,

trading day:

R+1.1: 2 Wins, 1 Loss

EJ trade:  Short at supply in strong downtrend.

EU trade:  Short at supply in strong downtrend.

GU trade:  Long at H4 demand into fresh H4 supply =  early exit

intro: started today where I left off yesterday... wanting to practice what my coach defines trading as : "managing risk". The penny dropped yesterday when watching a trading documentary with a trainer who was under-trading and as such was not allowed to move to live trading because he didn't have enough experience; Sim trading is about building experience managing risk.

thoughts: first two trades were simple shorts in a downtrend at supply, momentum never really kicked in so exited for +0.7 on both.  The loser was probably not the best trade, although I'll concede to myself that it wasn't easy.  I bought low at H4 demand which was the right idea,  but on drilling out to the h4 time frame I saw price had just put in a pivot high, defining supply just above current price so I got out for -0.3 as I realised I had no edge. This was a counter trend trade.

summary: Happy with today, another 3 trades under the belt and another 3 experiences managing risk.  got to be careful counter trend trading even off longterm levels, in the GU example I would have been better off trading short term charts with trend.

lessons: 1. Don't fight the trend.

Today's trading...

R+0.3: 1 Loss, 1 Win

EU trade:  just breaking the "no trade cycle" and managing risk.

GU trade: could've held a bit longer.

intro: on watching the other millions by the minutes documentary and having this nagging feeling that I am not trading I just wanted to put a trade on today to break the cycle.  The first was a loss the second was a win.

thoughts: I bloody hate not trading as I know when I'm not trading I'm not learning or building experience.  The last couple days the markets have been flying away from long term levels (the ones I try and trade) leaving me no entries so today when the M30 trend picked up I drilled down to the M5 chart to try and find rally entries on the EU and GU. The main goal of today was to break the cycle of no trades, the second was to make my coach proud.  Watching the first episode of the documentary there was a trainer trader whose coaches were unwilling to let go live as they simple didn't have enough data in him, he under traded as little as 1 trade a day over  seven markets and as such they were worried that he was under experienced. I trade 3 markets and their worry about him made me realise I should be taking at least a 1-2 trades a day. It's about building experience as much as building capital.

summary: building capital is just a by-product of managing risk. I keep forgetting that trading is simply about managing risk, sure you need to time an entry to where you think there will be some momentum but ultimately if you lose small/mange risk you are more likely to win/be profitable as you have less loss to make up. Today I tried to trade with an eye towards making my coach proud, taking positions where there was a good possibility of momentum kicking then managing the *&^% out of the risk.

lessons: 1. in fast markets, drill down to the M5 to find an entry, any rally/pullback will do. 2. if you get an potential entry where you think there'll be momentum, just get in and manage the risk 3. trading is about managing risk and building experience

morning prep:

afternoon summary: