
31 Jan 01312019 Trade Plan — Good trading day
01312019 Trade Plan — Good trading day
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 | Sun | Mon | Tue | Wed | Thu |
- | 1/27 | 1/28 | 1/29 | 1/30 | 1/31 |
Beers night before | 10 | 6 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Time bed yesterday | 6:27 | 4:20 | 23:19 | - | 21:37 |
woke up | 12:04 | 13:38 | 7:56 | - | 6:32 |
Hours sleep | 5:37 | 9:18 | 8:37 | - | 8:55 |
Awake | 0:47 | 1:31 | 1:23 | - | 1:17 |
REM | 0:50 | 1:20 | 0:37 | - | 0:40 |
Light | 3:08 | 4:31 | 5:26 | - | 5:59 |
Deep | 0:52 | 1:56 | 1:11 | - | 0:59 |
Sleep well? | 2 | 3 | 4 | - | 4 |
Melatonin | 0 | 0 | 0 | - | 0 |
Negative thoughts? | 2 | 3 | 3 | - | 1 |
Exercise yester(to)day | 3 | 3 | 3 | - | 4 |
Gratitude | 5 | 4 | 5 | - | 5 |
Joy | 5 | 4 | 5 | - | 5 |
Anger | 1 | 1 | 1 | - | 1 |
Fear | 1 | 3 | 2 | - | 1 |
Focus | 2 | 2 | 2 | - | 3 |
Coffees today | 1 espresso spread over 1 hours afternoon | 1TC in afternoon 1 scoop | 1 espresso spread over 1 hours afternoon | - | 1 TC in the morning, 1 espresso in afternoon |
Intermittent fasting | no | no | yes | - | yes |
Water L | 3 | 3 | 3 | - | 3 |
Vitamins | yes | yes | yes | - | yes |
Cigarettes | 10 | 0 | 0 | - | 5 |
Health review (for the past week)
- How would you describe your overall health?
- Overall health is good. Started exercising in the morning so that’s something I want to keep doing. A quick 12-minute workout. Should be doable.
- How do you feel?
- I feel good just not as sharp as I’d like to be.
- How would you rate it (1–5)?
- 2
The Big Picture (daily)
- What happened yesterday? Where are the technical levels?
- During AS we bounced off the prev low and then during LS we confirmed a double bottom and started our ascend to 55.003 level
Intraday Fundamentals
- API report
- Build 2.098M
- EIA report
- Build 0.919M
Intraday Technical Analysis
- HTF
- Define context
- Where were the overnight highs and lows?
- High 55.003
- Low 53.204
- Where is the LIS?
- 53.90 area
- What didn’t happen?
- We didn’t roll over and BD from DT and the bulls seem to be still in charge
- Where do you think it should go?
- A pullback to LIS is more probable
- Where’s the best R/R? Opportunities?
- BO from excess and prev high
- Where were the overnight highs and lows?
- Define context
- TTF
- Dialling in on opportunities
- Where are the areas of established “value” and “excess”?
- I believe that value is near the prev low around 53.40 area
- And excess area is around 54.70 near prev high
- 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 made a shift higher swinging over previous high and thus having made a HH
- What trade locations among this structure would l like to get involved in that will offer me the best R/R opportunities?
- A hold of excess/prev high levels for a shorting opportunity down to 54 area
- BO from excess/prev high to new highs would be good for a long
- Where are the areas of established “value” and “excess”?
- Dialling in on opportunities
- LTF
- What has the Asian Session printed?
- AS has been inching up slowly but might settle on a LH
- What has the Asian Session printed?
Trade Idea
- Hypo 1 Short
- Overextend over excess area near prev high
- Short entry around excess area above 54.75
- PT around 54.40
- Stretch PT around 54
- Overextend over excess area near prev high
- Hypo 2 Short
- BD from excess area
- Entry around 54.65
- PT around 54.40
- Stretch PT around 54
- BD from excess area
- Hypo 3 Long
- Overextend over excess area and pullback to hold this area to BO from prev high
- Long entry around excess area
- PT around 55 level
- Stretch PT around 56 to 56.90
- Overextend over excess area and pullback to hold this area to BO from prev high
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.
- AS was rolling over and moving away from excess area so I took a chance on the open when we moved down because looks like HYPO2 might be in play
- Looks like HYPO2 might have started during the last few hours of AS
- T1 HTF SRF win 6.8 ticks
- Looking to get in short when PA goes back up to VWAP
- This opportunity never came as we dropped further down to LIS
- Looking to see if we are aiming to hold this area or if we will reverse here
- T2 win 9.2 ticks
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?
- We moved away from excess area and London opened breaking TTF VWAP
- What technical level are we at?
- Below VWAP
- Where are we as opposed to the value, excess and LIS areas?
- LTF
- Is LTF confirming?
- LTF had broken 200MA on the open so took a short
- What risk am I going to put on?
- 15% of intraday loss
- Entry: 54.497
- Is LTF confirming?
- TTF
- SL
- 54.65
- TP
- 54.30 area
- Trade Management
- Added a short when we moved back to 200MA and VWAP on the LTF
- Total risk of 36% of intraday loss
- Entry 1
- 54.497
- Covered at 54.478
- Win 1.9 ticks
- Entry 2
- 54.557
- Covered at 54.508
- Win 4.9 ticks
- Reason for covering was that we took a long time to drop and I had expected a bigger faster move but that didn’t happen. This combined with being at the TTF 50MA
- Why? What do I see?
- T2
- Why? What do I see?
- TTF
- Where are we as opposed to the value, excess and LIS areas?
- We had just bounced off the LIS with a very big bullish candle and then made a doji candle on a pullback on the TTF
- What technical level are we at?
- Bullish candle off the 2.0 SD and then the doji into the 1.5 SD
- Where are we as opposed to the value, excess and LIS areas?
- LTF
- Is LTF confirming?
- LTF showed a potential break of the VWAP and that was my entry
- What risk am I going to put on?
- I risked 15% of intraday loss
- Entry: 54.256
- Is LTF confirming?
- TTF
- SL
- Hard 54 soft 54.20
- TP
- 54.50
- Trade Management
- After taking the first position, PA dropped against me. I watched PA having a hard time to drop further and was looking to make a HL on the LTF. When I saw a bullish candle appear on the HL I added to my position. When this went in my favor I quickly covered at LKC/VWAP to minimize my risk. I then watched the trade trade sideways along the LKC/VWAP but still above the previous HL and so I stayed in. Then PA rallied in my favor and I covered at 54.461 a few ticks shy of my profit target.
- Entry 1
- 54.256
- Covered at 54.299
- Win 4.3 ticks
- Entry 2
- 54.412
- Covered at 54.461
- Win 4.9 ticks
- Why? What do I see?
Daily Report Card
Date: | 1/31/2019 | Weekly Goal | Execute playbook trades |
Combined Score | 89 | ||
Process Report Card (10 each) | Performance Report Card (10 each) | ||
10 | Pre-market routines | 8 | Hypos |
10 | Session PECS | 9 | Real-time analysis |
9 | Trading the process | 7 | Trade selection |
10 | Daily review | 9 | Trade Execution & Mgmt. |
10 | Progress toward Weekly goal | 7 | Risk Adjusted Returns |
49 | Total | 40 | |
- 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?
- I did OK. HYPO2 played out but I feel like I could have added a bounce of the LIS. Then again I did well to anticipate the move so I’m happy with that.
- How well did I manage my physical, emotional and cognitive states?
- There was one trade I took that I should have not taken. And that it still went in my favor is more luck than actually following my plan.
- What did I do well?
- I did well to understand real-time analysis and therefore I didn’t cover my one trade that I felt like didn’t take it at the right moment. I saw that the overall direction of the move was intact and left the trade to eventually go in my favor and even added to my position at the point where I should have gotten in anyway.
- What do I need to improve?
- I need to improve my playbook on taking trend-following trades that don’t fit my usual setups. I feel like I am losing opportunities here and I do see similar patterns emerging in the context of my setup. So this is something that I will keep on working.
- What’s one thing you learned today?
- I learned that being patient gets rewarded. Wait for your opportunity and then strike to kill or be killed. It does not matter. Sometimes you win. Sometimes you lose. That’s just the nature of the game.
- What’s one thing I need to do more often?
- Keep executing playbook setups
- What’s one thing I need to do less often?
- Take low R/R trades even though they are more likely to happen. Hit rate might be high but the toll of being in the trade could cost more in terms of willpower and focus than what it’s worth. Save this for the higher R/R opportunities
Feedback?
Any questions or feedback you might have please feel free to leave a comment or contact me directly.
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