01232019 Trade Plan

23 Jan 01232019 Trade Plan

01232019 Trade Plan

Ter­mi­nol­o­gy (par­tial­ly made up by yours truly)

• PA = Price Action
• BO = Break Out
• BD = Break Down
• CAR = Con­firm As Resistance
• CAS = Con­firm As Support
• UKC = Upper Kelt­ner Channel
• LKC = Low­er Kelt­ner Channel
• TV = Tick Volume
• WPP = Week­ly Piv­ot Point
• DPP = Dai­ly Piv­ot Point
• DR = Dai­ly Resis­tance (piv­ot)
• DS = Dai­ly Sup­port (piv­ot)
• WR = Week­ly Resis­tance (piv­ot)
• WS = Week­ly Sup­port (piv­ot)
• HL = High­er Low
• HH = High­er High
• LH = Low­er High
• LL = Low­er Low
• SD = Stan­dard Deviation
• VWAP = Vol­ume Weight­ed Aver­age Price
• AS = Asian Session
• LS = Lon­don Ses­sion (EU)
• NY = New York Ses­sion (US)
• R/R = Risk to Reward
• M2M = Move to Move
• T2H = Trade to Hold
• DT = DownTrend
• UT = UpTrend
• LTF = Low­er Time Frame
• HTF = High­er Time Frame
• Hypo = HYPOthetical

Per­son­al Checklist

5 pos­i­tive 1 negative	Sat	Sun	Mon	Tue	Wed
-	1/19	1/20	1/21	1/22	1/23
Beers night before	7	10	5	0	2
Time bed yesterday	3:10	5:03	0:58	23:07	0:22
woke up	10:46	11:05	8:30	7:37	8:16
Hours sleep	7:36	6:02	7:32	8:30	7:54
Awake	1:01	1:02	1:07	-	1:04
REM	1:29	0:27	0:57	-	2:10
Light	3:30	2:58	3:54	-	3:33
Deep	1:36	1:35	1:34	-	1:07
Sleep well?	2	1	3	1	3
Mela­tonin	0	0	0	0	0
Neg­a­tive thoughts?	2	2	2	2	1
Exer­cise yester(to)day	1	1	1	1	3
Grat­i­tude	5	5	4	4	5
Joy	5	5	4	4	5
Anger	1	1	1	1	1
Fear	1	1	2	1	1
Focus	2	2	2	3	4
Cof­fees today	no cof­fee	1 turk­ish cof­fee (1 scoop)	1 espres­so spread over 2 hours afternoon	1 TC morn­ing (1 scoop), 1TC after­noon (half)	1 espres­so spread over 2 hours afternoon
Inter­mit­tent fasting	no	no	no	no	yes
Water L	3	3	3	3	3
Vit­a­mins	no	yes	yes	yes	yes
Cig­a­rettes	10	10	0	0	0

Health review (for the past week)

• How would you describe your over­all health?
  • I am always bet­ter in the mid­dle of the week when I’ve had a day or two to bounce back from the week­end. My main goal for the next 3 months is to get my week­ends under con­trol. What does that mean ‘to get under con­trol’? I will write a blog post on it this week.
• How do you feel?
  • I feel good. Even though I slip up some­times I feel I am still pro­gress­ing towards my goal to become a CPT. Could it go faster? Sure. I’m a bit stub­born though. This jour­nal­ing on my health is def­i­nite­ly help­ing see­ing where I go wrong. 
• How would you rate it (1–5)?
  • 3

The Big Pic­ture (dai­ly)

• What hap­pened yes­ter­day? Where are the tech­ni­cal levels?
  • Yes­ter­day we held the excess area by start­ing AS off with a DT away from 54.30 lev­el to then ulti­mate­ly BD from val­ue area and com­ing back up to test it around 53.75 level
  • After test­ing the val­ue area and fail­ing it we con­tin­ue the DT down dur­ing the ses­sion to 53 lev­el where we have a small pull­back 53.30 before NY opens
  • Then NY BD from 30M 200MA and brings us fur­ther down to 52.10 lev­el before try­ing to recov­er in the rest of the Lon­don ses­sion before that ends
  • After­wards we bounce off 52.30 lev­el to con­tin­ue up in a messy UT retrac­ing the over­all move back up to 30M 200MA area 

Intra­day Fundamentals

• API report
  • Today. Wednes­day, Jan­u­ary 23rd
• EIA report
  • Thurs­day, Jan­u­ary 24th
    • Fore­cast ‑0.435M

Intra­day Tech­ni­cal Analysis

• HTF
  • Define con­text
    • Where were the overnight highs and lows?
      • Prev High 54.317
      • Prev Low 52.069
    • Where is the LIS?
      • I’d say the line in the sand is the 53 area
      • We seem to have bounced off this area before and then had a failed attempt before BO last week
      • And now we BD yes­ter­day so let’s see how the mar­ket reacts to this area
    • What didn’t happen?
      • I expect­ed the mar­ket to roll over last week but that still hasn’t hap­pened. The HTF 50MA has held up nice­ly so far. I do think the like­li­ness is increas­ing that we will BD from this 50MA in the short to medi­um term.
    • Where do you think it should go?
      • I think it could make a failed swing high before we roll over and make an attempt to BD from 50MA
        • If not we might find our­selves in a range between 52 and 54 lev­els for the medi­um term
    • Where’s the best R/R? Opportunities?
      • Short­ing around prev high failed swing high
      • BO from LIS
• TTF
  • Dialling in on opportunities
    • Where are the areas of estab­lished “val­ue” and “excess”?
      • Excess area is around 53.50 area
      • Val­ue area is 52.30 area
    • Is there a shift in value/excess migra­tion? What is the cur­rent mar­ket con­di­tion? Are we trend­ing, balancing/range bound? Where are we in the trend range axis?
      • We just had a big drop to 52.10 lev­el so we might be bal­anc­ing on the short to medi­um term
    • What trade loca­tions among this struc­ture would l like to get involved in that will offer me the best R/R opportunities?
      • BD from LIS
      • BO from LIS and overex­tend into excess area then roll over
• LTF
  • What has the Asian Ses­sion printed?
    • AS bounced and reject­ed 52.70 lev­el hard and has trad­ed high­er to 53.20 level

Trade Idea

• Hypo 1
  • BO from LIS to overex­tend into excess area then roll over
    • Short oppor­tu­ni­ty 53.50 area 
      • PT around 53.15
      • Stretch PT around 52.50 area
• Hypo 2
  • BD from LIS to test val­ue area
    • Short oppor­tu­ni­ty 52.90
      • PT around 52.70
      • Stretch PT around 52.40

• Hypo 3
  • BO from LIS and BO from excess area and hold this lev­el to con­tin­ue short-term UT
    • Long oppor­tu­ni­ty 53.50
      • PT around 54.10

My goals for the day (Dai­ly Report Card)

• Define win­ning
  • Per­form well by stick­ing to play­book setups and be hap­py by doing what I love and under­stand­ing that I give myself over to the ran­dom­ness of the market

Read­ing the Tape

• What is print­ing? Look for PA with high­er TV and S/R levels.
  • I missed the first half hour of the session
  • It seems HYPO1 is in play but got in play before LS opened
    • We are now test­ing the LIS again
  • KC on LTF is up but is widening
  • PA just bounced off 30M 50MA and is at 30M 200MA and 200MA is trend­ing up but 50MA is trend­ing down
  • Spread is wider than usual
  • PA seems errat­ic a bit and I should be extra cau­tious. I’m going to wait for the mar­ket show signs of a con­firmed BD or BO from LIS before I reeval­u­at­ed get­ting in.
    • PA had just shot up to 53.20 and then imme­di­ate­ly got absorbed by sell­ers back down to 53 level
  • Looks like we might BD from LIS because we just had a big drop
    • Look for PB to LTF VWAP for a pos­si­ble short opportunity
  • We could be look­ing at a HYPO1 with stretched prof­it tar­get play­ing out here
    • I’m going to wait for some con­sol­i­da­tion before I con­sid­er get­ting in
    • We reversed back up into the LIS area 
      • Now stalk­ing a VWAP rejec­tion so that I could short here but I think since the move is very sharp we might see a break of VWAP
        • Which is hap­pen­ing right now
  • I think I’m not going to take any more trades today
  • T2
    • I scratched the posi­tion since it didn’t go down for me fast enough

Trade Man­age­ment

Explain what trade you put on (include price, SL, TP) and what your thoughts are dur­ing the trade

• T1
  • Why? What do I see?
    • TTF
      • What is the main trend? Look at KC
        • Been in an UT since the bounce off 52 lev­el yesterday
        • Cur­rent­ly in a pull­back to LIS with signs of rejection
      • Where are we as opposed to the val­ue and excess areas?
        • At the LIS which seems to be rejecting
      • Are we at a tech­ni­cal level?
        • Above 30M 200MA and 50MA
    • LTF
      • Is LTF confirming?
        • Big rejec­tion of 53 lev­el which is the bot­tom of the LIS area
      • What risk am I going to put on?
        • About 13% of Dai­ly risk
      • Entry: 53.126
  • SL
    • 52.976
  • TP
    • 53.45
  • Trade Man­age­ment
    • Cov­ered at LTF VWAP since this is a new set­up for me and want­ed to pock­et some prof­its. Also PA felt as if buy­ers were dry­ing up around the 53.13 lev­el every time we hit it so felt there should have been a move before and it didn’t happen.
      • Cov­ered at 53.158
        • Win 3.2 ticks
      • Hap­py I cov­ered when I did because PA dropped down to 53 level

• T2
  • Why? What do I see?
    • TTF
      • What is the main trend? Look at KC
        • We were in an UT but have hit the 30M UKC and then formed a very bear­ish can­dle at the excess area of 53.50
      • Where are we as opposed to the val­ue and excess areas?
        • Just under the excess area
      • Are we at a tech­ni­cal level?
        • UKC and Excess area
    • LTF
      • Is LTF confirming?
        • Big­ger bod­ied bear­ish can­dle after the last ral­ly can­dle into overex­tend­ed 2.0 SD
      • What risk am I going to put on?
        • 13% of dai­ly risk but I might add to position
      • Entry: 53.468
  • SL
    • 53.568
  • TP
    • 53.324
  • Trade Man­age­ment
    • We haven’t bro­ken the LTF UKC yet
      • There was a lot of inde­ci­sive can­dles of about 25 min­utes so I scratched the trade at 53.468

Trade Review

• Did you let your trade play out or did you cov­er or stop out soon­er? If so, why?
  • T1
    • I took a prof­it at the VWAP and if I hadn’t I would have got­ten stopped out
  • T2
    • Scratched and if I hadn’t I would have got­ten stopped out
• P/L for the day

Open Time	Type	Size	Item	Price	S / L	T / P	Close Time	Price	-
2019.01.23 13:02:14	sell	2	wti	53.468	53.551	53.301	2019.01.23 13:29:43	53.468	0.00
2019.01.23 10:50:54	buy	2	wti	53.126	52.976	53.449	2019.01.23 11:06:36	53.158	3.20
-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	3.20

Dai­ly Report Card

• Define win­ning
  • Per­form well by stick­ing to play­book setups and be hap­py by doing what I love and under­stand­ing that I give myself over to the ran­dom­ness of the market

• How accu­rate was my assess­ment of mar­ket context?
  • Mod­er­ate­ly accurate
    • HYPO1 played out, sort of. We made a move below LIS before even­tu­al­ly revers­ing and blast­ing through LIS and then hit­ting overex­tend­ed area into excess
      • How­ev­er, we didn’t have the rever­sal after­wards. At least not dur­ing the LS, per­haps dur­ing NY
• How well did I fol­low my process?
  • I stuck with my HYPO1 and the trad­ing plan I envisioned. 
  • When I saw an oppor­tu­ni­ty come up I stalked it and found an OK entry
  • When lat­er on I spot­ted no oppor­tu­ni­ty fit­ting my cri­te­ria I stayed out of it
• How well did I man­age my phys­i­cal, emo­tion­al and cog­ni­tive states?
  • Again, this thing with per­cent­ages is def­i­nite­ly mak­ing me feel good with­in a trade. Espe­cial­ly com­bined with a trade tak­en as part of my plan
• What did I do well?
  • I did well to fol­low my process and had a mod­er­ate­ly accu­rate view of the mar­ket. Then dur­ing the trad­ing ses­sion I noticed PA mov­ing very fast and errat­ic which made me stay out and then after the swing high it behaved very slug­gish which made me feel like stay­ing out as well. The speed of the mar­ket is impor­tant and when the move didn’t hap­pen as fast as I thought it would I scratched it.
  • I also did well to ‘read the tape’ when I saw that PA didn’t want to move and break the VWAP
  • I improved my check­list before enter­ing a trade
• What do I need to improve?
  • Improve the way I des­ig­nate areas to be val­ue or excess areas
    • There can be more area of each as I real­ized today
• What’s one thing you learned today?
  • The speed of the mar­ket is part of its char­ac­ter and thus impor­tant. When the mar­ket doesn’t ‘feel’ right be extra cautious
• What’s one thing I need to do more often?
  • Trade less by stick­ing to my trad­ing plan and not chase the market
• What’s one thing I need to do less often?
  • Pre­dict­ing the mar­ket. Remem­ber. The mar­ket is gov­erned by ran­dom­ness and my abil­i­ty to find high­er prob­a­bil­i­ties in cer­tain areas
• Grade your­self 1 to 5 (5 being the best)
  • 4

Feed­back?

Any ques­tions or feed­back you might have please feel free to leave a com­ment or con­tact me directly.