01312019 Trade Plan — Good trading day

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
• 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
• LTF
  • What has the Asian Ses­sion printed?
    • AS has been inch­ing up slow­ly but might set­tle on a LH

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
• Hypo 2 Short
  • BD from excess area
    • Entry around 54.65
    • PT around 54.40
    • Stretch PT around 54
• 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

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
    • 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
  • 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

• 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
    • 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
  • 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

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.