01292019 Trade Plan — another sluggish day

29 Jan 01292019 Trade Plan — another sluggish day

01292019 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
• TTF = Trad­ing Time Frame
• HTF = High­er Time Frame
• Hypo = HYPOthetical

Per­son­al Checklist

5 pos­i­tive 1 negative	Fri	Sat	Sun	Mon	Tue
-	1/25	1/26	1/27	1/28	1/29
Beers night before	2	6	10	6	0
Time bed yesterday	0:28	1:55	6:27	4:20	23:19
woke up	8:46	11:26	12:04	13:38	7:56
Hours sleep	8:18	9:31	5:37	9:18	8:37
Awake	1:17	1:20	0:47	1:31	1:23
REM	1:47	1:39	0:50	1:20	0:37
Light	3:59	4:45	3:08	4:31	5:26
Deep	1:25	1:47	0:52	1:56	1:11
Sleep well?	4	4	2	3	4
Mela­tonin	0	0	0	0	0
Neg­a­tive thoughts?	1	1	2	3	3
Exer­cise yester(to)day	3	3	3	3	3
Grat­i­tude	5	5	5	4	5
Joy	5	5	5	4	5
Anger	2	1	1	1	1
Fear	1	1	1	3	2
Focus	3	3	2	2	2
Cof­fees today	1 espres­so spread over 1 hours afternoon	1 espres­so spread over 1 hours afternoon	1 espres­so spread over 1 hours afternoon	1TC in after­noon 1 scoop	1 espres­so spread over 1 hours afternoon
Inter­mit­tent fasting	no	no	no	no	yes
Water L	3	3	3	3	3
Vit­a­mins	yes	no	yes	yes	yes
Cig­a­rettes	10	10	10	0	0

Health review (for the past week)

• How would you describe your over­all health?
  • I’ve been sleep­ing more so am feel­ing bet­ter late­ly. I still need to get on point with exer­cis­ing. My friend told me about a sim­ple work­out that only lasts 12 min­utes. I will do that every morn­ing from now. 
• How do you feel?
  • I feel OK but a bit on edge. I’m still hav­ing some neg­a­tive thoughts so I should be more care­ful today. Stick to your plan. When you wait for your set­up to arise you make mon­ey every time. Be patient. You’re a fish­er­man. There’s plen­ty to go around. 
• How would you rate it (1–5)?
  • 2

The Big Pic­ture (dai­ly)

• What hap­pened yes­ter­day? Where are the tech­ni­cal levels?
  • We start­ed the AS with a swing low that failed to reach the excess area and was a bear­ish sign. The rest of the ses­sion we inched low­er and broke through LIS area 53.25 with ease 
  • Then dur­ing LS we con­tin­ued the decline and BD from prev low at 52.969 and spend the remain­der of the ses­sion pulling back to CAR the prev low and then dur­ing NY we drop hard to even­tu­al­ly 51.40 level

Intra­day Fundamentals

• API report
  • Com­ing out today Jan­u­ary 29th
• EIA report
  • Com­ing out tomor­row Jan­u­ary 30th

Intra­day Tech­ni­cal Analysis

• HTF
  • Define con­text
    • Where were the overnight highs and lows?
      • High 53.699
      • Low 51.393
    • Where is the LIS?
      • The LIS is around the 53 area
    • What didn’t happen?
      • We didn’t BD from HTF LKC yet
    • Where do you think it should go?
      • I think that even­tu­al­ly it will go down to find poten­tial sup­port around the 50 level
    • Where’s the best R/R? Opportunities?
      • A failed swing high to LIS would present a good short­ing opportunity
      • A drop to prev low and reverse to test and poten­tial­ly BO from val­ue area
• TTF
  • Dialling in on opportunities
    • Where are the areas of estab­lished “val­ue” and “excess”?
      • Val­ue is around 52.20 area
      • Excess around 53.60 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 are migrat­ing down a bit
    • What trade loca­tions among this struc­ture would l like to get involved in that will offer me the best R/R opportunities?
      • Failed swing high over the val­ue area could give a great short­ing opportunity
      • BD from val­ue area as well
      • Overex­tend towards LIS and then roll over
• LTF
  • What has the Asian Ses­sion printed?
    • After the O/N bounced high­er from 51.40 lev­el the AS took us down to make a HL at 51.90 area
    • We then found resis­tance at 52.35 level

Trade Idea

• Hypo 1 Short
  • BD from Val­ue area to prev low and then reverse
    • Entry area 52 level
    • PT prev low around 51.50
• Hypo 2 Short
  • Overex­tend over 52.50 to near touch of LIS before rolling over
    • Entry around 52.50
    • PT 52.20
    • Stretch PT around 51.90, 51.50
• Hypo 3 Long
  • BO from Val­ue area 
    • Entry area around 52.50
    • PT around 53
    • Stretch PT around 53.50

My goals for the day (Dai­ly Report Card)

• Define win­ning
  • Per­form well by EXECUTING 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.
  • HYPO2 got in play before LS opened so I will look for a BD from val­ue before get­ting in
  • It looks like we might hold the Val­ue area
  • We are at the LTF 50MA and the TTF 50MA and might pos­si­bly BO
  • We might overex­tend into a failed swing high on the TTF and cre­at­ing a short oppor­tu­ni­ty but it looks still very much bull­ish so we might even­tu­al­ly go test LIS
  • We have what looks like a healthy UT on the LTF
  • T1 loss 7.8 ticks
  • PA act­ing a bit errat­ic. We did even­tu­al­ly go down from LTF UKC and bounced off the 50MA and VWAP and then straight up
    • We could pos­si­bly go test TTF UKC and 200MA and thus the LIS at 53 level
  • T2 win 5.2 ticks and 2.2 ticks
  • I’m glad I fol­lowed my gut and cov­ered my posi­tions since PA seems to have reversed. But again PA is mov­ing very slug­gish with­out sig­nif­i­cant moves
    • Thus I’m not sure if I will take anoth­er posi­tion or not
    • It looks like I won’t be tak­ing any posi­tions anymore 
      • As soon I said this PA tried drop­ping from LTF 50MA 
  • Done trad­ing

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
      • Where are we as opposed to the val­ue, excess and LIS areas?
        • A move away from Val­ue area around the 52.50 lev­el that was in HYPO2 so when a doji appeared at LTF UKC I took a short
      • What tech­ni­cal lev­el are we at?
        • Pre­vi­ous swing high
    • LTF
      • Is LTF confirming?
        • Doji at LTF UKC
      • What risk am I going to put on?
        • 10% of dai­ly risk
      • Entry: 52.457
  • SL
    • 52.532
  • TP
    • 52.330
  • Trade Man­age­ment
    • Cov­ered at 52.535
    • Loss 7.8 ticks

• T2
  • Why? What do I see?
    • TTF
      • Where are we as opposed to the val­ue, excess and LIS areas?
        • Broke through TTF 50MA and VWAP and mov­ing away from Val­ue are and thought a long is warranted
      • What tech­ni­cal lev­el are we at?
        • Above the TTF 50MA and VWAP 
          • PT around UKC 200MA
    • LTF
      • Is LTF confirming?big sharp move up to LTF UKCand then a pull­back so took a shot. If we break the pull backs low I’m out around 52.50
      • What risk am I going to put on?
        • 10% of dai­ly risk
      • Entry: 52.579
  • SL
    • 52.344
  • TP
    • 52.868
  • Trade Man­age­ment
    • Cov­ered half when we showed loss of momen­tum to BO from swing high
      • If we BO I will be look­ing to add to position
      • We returned to prev entry point and I took anoth­er 10% risk think­ing the pat­tern is still valid. I’ll be cov­er­ing at a loss if we break pre­vi­ous can­dle low
      • Cov­ered them all since I felt that PA wasn’t mov­ing as quick­ly as I’d liked
      • P1 52.579
        • TPH at 52.637 win 5.8 ticks
        • TPH at 52.625 win 4.6 ticks
          • Aver­age 5.2 ticks
      • P2 52.609
        • TP at 52.631 Win 2.2 ticks

Trade Review

• Did you let your trade play out or did you cov­er or stop out soon­er? If so, why?
  • I did well. I took my SL when it got hit. I under­stood that the trade had to go my way straight away and thus I set a very tight SL and took a min­i­mal loss. 
  • Then when I took the oth­er trades I saw that PA was not behav­ing ‘nor­mal­ly’ and I cut them loose. 
• P/L for the day

Open Time	Type	Size	Item	Price	S / L	T / P	Close Time	Price	P/L ticks
2019.01.29 12:14:07	buy	2	wti	52.609	0	53.126	2019.01.29 12:19:07	52.631	2.20
2019.01.29 12:04:35	buy	1	wti	52.579	52.378	53.147	2019.01.29 12:18:06	52.625	4.60
2019.01.29 12:04:35	buy	1	wti	52.579	52.344	52.868	2019.01.29 12:11:29	52.637	5.80
2019.01.29 11:21:09	sell	2	wti	52.457	52.532	52.33	2019.01.29 11:22:07	52.535	-7.80
-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-0.40

Dai­ly Report Card

• Define win­ning
  • Per­form well by EXECUTING 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?
    • HYPO2 start­ed play­ing out but PA was so slug­gish that not much hap­pened after we went over the 52.50 level
  • How well did I man­age my phys­i­cal, emo­tion­al and cog­ni­tive states?
    • Focussing on play­book setups and think­ing in per­cent­ages has real­ly helped me stay calm
    • I can focus bet­ter now when it mat­ters because I start­ed using price alerts around the areas that I would tar­get and stalk for an opportunity
  • What did I do well?
    • I did well to under­stand that today’s trad­ing was going to be dif­fer­ent because the PA was very slug­gish and can­dles had most­ly long bod­ies with almost no wicks and this indi­cates to me that’s some­thing is going on which is not con­ducive to my trad­ing setups
  • What do I need to improve?
    • There was one trade that I could have tak­en but didn’t since it didn’t feel it fit my set­up well but turned out to be the biggest move of the ses­sion. I could have risked a small­er per­cent­age on that move to push myself beyond my com­fort zone a bit. The mar­ket con­di­tions were right I just felt the TTF wasn’t giv­ing me the right sig­nal although the LTF kin­da did. I could have tak­en a chance here with like I said less risk put on. 
  • What’s one thing you learned today?
  • What’s one thing I need to do more often?
    • Keep stalk­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties when they are in play
  • What’s one thing I need to do less often?
    • No need to keep mon­i­tor­ing every tick move if my alerts aren’t trig­gered. I know where my entry areas are and I should only focus on those