12282018 Trade Plan — Scalping to BREAK EVEN

28 Dec 12282018 Trade Plan — Scalping to BREAK EVEN

12282018 Trade Plan — Scalp­ing to BREAK EVEN

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)

Per­son­al Checklist

5 pos­i­tive 1 negative	Sun	Mon	Tue	Wed	Thu	Fri
	12/23	12/24	12/25	12/26	12/27	12/28
Beers night before	2	10	0	3 glass­es of wine	4	0
Hours sleep	8	6	9	8	8	8.5
Sleep well?	2	1	3	1	2	2
Mela­tonin	0	0	0	0.5 x	0	0
Neg­a­tive thoughts?	1	2	1	3	1	2
Exer­cise yester(to)day	1	1	1	1	1	1
Grat­i­tude	5	4	5	4	5	5
Joy	5	4	5	4	5	5
Anger	1	1	1	1	1	1
Fear	1	1	1	1	1	1
Focus	3	1	2	2	2	2
Cof­fees today	1 espres­so spread over 1.5 hours	0	1 espres­so spread over 2 hours	1 espres­so spread over 2 hours	1 espres­so spread over 2 hours	1 espres­so spread over 2 hours
Inter­mit­tent fasting	no	no	no	yes	yes	no
Water 2.2L bottles	2	1	2	2	2	2
Vit­a­mins	no	yes	yes	yes	yes	yes
Time bed yesterday	02:00	02:30	10:30	11:00	11:00	10:30

Health review (for the past week)

• How would you describe your over­all health?
  • I am get­ting more sleep so that’s good. I am also try­ing to fast more often, but I should find a sched­ule and fol­low it. 
• How do you feel?
  • I feel OK. Have had enough sleep but late­ly I’ve had trou­ble falling asleep. It might be the caf­feine, but not sure about that. Because some days I don’t have this prob­lem. I’ll pay more atten­tion to it.
  • I’ve had a few cringes today so it’s best to be extra care­ful today. Good thing that I already decid­ed yes­ter­day to go back down in lev­el to con­ser­v­a­tive sizing.
• How would you rate it (1–5)?
  • 3

The Big Pic­ture (dai­ly)

• What hap­pened yesterday?
  • On the Dai­ly we can see that we pulled back to the 1.5 SD and then reject­ed it
  • On the 4H we can see that this lev­el is inside the KC and above the 4H VWAP mean but we also reject­ed the Dai­ly 46.25 lev­el as resis­tance so we might set up to range between 46.25 and 44.80
• What is the mar­ket sentiment?
  • What does the crowd think?
    • Accord­ing to investing.com yesterday
      • All sen­ti­ments is 60% bullish
      • Last week 54% bullish
      • Last 3 days 54% bullish
      • Bull­ish­ness has def­i­nite­ly dropped but since this is the sen­ti­ment on the retail lev­el we could per­haps assume the oppo­site of this
    • Accord­ing to investing.com today
      • All sen­ti­ments is 60% bullish
      • Last week 55% bullish
      • Last 3 days 57% bullish
      • Sen­ti­ment is a lit­tle more bull­ish than before
• EURUSD
  • High 1.14537
  • Low 1.13501
  • EURUSD: Retail trad­er data shows 48.9% of traders are net-long with the ratio of traders short to long at 1.05 to 1. The num­ber of traders net-long is 7.8% low­er than yes­ter­day and 1.2% high­er from last week, while the num­ber of traders net-short is 8.5% high­er than yes­ter­day and 20.7% low­er from last week.
  • We typ­i­cal­ly take a con­trar­i­an view to crowd sen­ti­ment, and the fact traders are net-short sug­gests EURUSD prices may con­tin­ue to rise. Posi­tion­ing is more net-short than yes­ter­day but less net-short from last week. The com­bi­na­tion of cur­rent sen­ti­ment and recent changes gives us a fur­ther mixed EURUSD trad­ing bias.
  • MIXED BIAS
• Gold
  • High 1278.94
  • Low 1266.85
  • Spot Gold: Retail trad­er data shows 76.8% of traders are net-long with the ratio of traders long to short at 3.31 to 1. The num­ber of traders net-long is 0.5% high­er than yes­ter­day and 5.5% low­er from last week, while the num­ber of traders net-short is 5.0% high­er than yes­ter­day and 15.0% high­er from last week.
  • We typ­i­cal­ly take a con­trar­i­an view to crowd sen­ti­ment, and the fact traders are net-long sug­gests Spot Gold prices may con­tin­ue to fall. Yet traders are less net-long than yes­ter­day and com­pared with last week. Recent changes in sen­ti­ment warn that the cur­rent Spot Gold price trend may soon reverse high­er despite the fact traders remain net-long.
  • BULLISH BIAS despite Net-Long positions

Intra­day Fundamentals

• API report
  • Sur­prise Inven­to­ry Build Sends Oil Prices Lower
    • The Amer­i­can Petro­le­um Insti­tute (API) report­ed a sur­prise crude oil inven­to­ry build of 6.9 mil­lion bar­rels for the week end­ing Decem­ber 21, com­pared to ana­lyst expec­ta­tions that we would see a draw in crude oil inven­to­ries of 2.869 mil­lion bar­rels. The sur­prise build will like­ly push oil prices fur­ther down, con­tin­u­ing the see­saw prices of the Christ­mas week.
• EIA report
  • Fore­cast is a draw of 2.869M but API came out with a build of 6.9M so let’s see what EIA comes out with today
• Geopol­i­tics and the head­lines of today?
  • Wall Street roars back late to keep ral­ly going
    • (Reuters) — U.S. stocks roared back to end in pos­i­tive ter­ri­to­ry on Thurs­day fol­low­ing steep loss­es for much of the ses­sion, as equi­ties rebound­ed for a sec­ond day.
  • Wall Street Sees Oil Price Recov­ery In 2019
    • Invest­ment banks have had to recal­i­brate their oil price fore­casts for next year after prices plunged by more than a third from ear­ly-Octo­ber highs.
  • OPEC+ Will Not Be Formalized
    • OPEC and Rus­sia-led non-OPEC oil pro­duc­ers are high­ly unlike­ly to cre­ate some kind of a for­mal joint orga­ni­za­tion for man­ag­ing the oil mar­ket, due to the addi­tion­al bureau­cra­cy and to the risk of falling prey to a pro­posed U.S. leg­is­la­tion that could open the car­tel and allies to antitrust law­suits, Russia’s Ener­gy Min­is­ter Alexan­der Novak said on Thursday.
  • Asian Mar­kets Rise After Tur­bu­lent Ses­sion on Wall Street
    • Investing.com — Asian mar­kets rose in morn­ing trade on Fri­day after U.S. stocks closed in pos­i­tive ter­ri­to­ry fol­low­ing a tur­bu­lent ses­sion that saw the Dow plunge more than 600 points at one point.
  • Oil prices jump, but over­sup­ply wor­ries persist
    • SEOUL (Reuters) — Oil prices jumped as much as 3 per­cent on Fri­day to win back a chunk of the ground they lost in the pre­vi­ous ses­sion, but growth in U.S. crude stock­piles and ongo­ing con­cerns about the glob­al econ­o­my kept mar­kets under pressure.
  • More Amer­i­cans blame Trump for gov­ern­ment shut­down: Reuters/Ipsos poll
    • NEW YORK/WASHINGTON (Reuters) — More Amer­i­cans blame Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump than con­gres­sion­al Democ­rats for the par­tial U.S. gov­ern­ment shut­down, accord­ing to a Reuters/Ipsos poll released on Thurs­day, as the clo­sure stretched into its sixth day with no end in sight.
  • Venezuela: A Real Threat To Guyana’s Oil Boom
    • Last Fri­day, the Guyanese gov­ern­ment fell after a no-con­fi­dence vote, a move that like­ly was viewed as an oppor­tune moment of weak­ness in Caracas.
    • A day lat­er, Venezuela’s navy approached two Nor­we­gian ves­sels con­duct­ing seis­mic work in Guyanese waters on Decem­ber 22, forc­ing the ships to flee to safer waters. The ships, under con­tract by Exxon­Mo­bil, are sur­vey­ing the area and work­ing to devel­op mas­sive oil dis­cov­er­ies that could trans­form Guyana.
  • U.S. stock funds attract cash for first time in six weeks: Lipper
    • NEW YORK (Reuters) — U.S. fund investors eased into wild stock mar­kets dur­ing the lat­est week, adding $5.2 bil­lion, accord­ing to Lip­per data on Thurs­day that reflect­ed the first net pos­i­tive flows for funds since Decem­ber’s sell­off began.
  • Investors Are More Wary of Trump Than of Wall Street
• Addi­tion­al OPEC news
  • Nope

Intra­day Tech­ni­cal Analysis

	Thu	Fri	Week	Mon	Tue	Wed	Thu
	12/20	12/21	12/17 — 12/21	12/24	12/25	12/26	12/27
High	47.543	46.816	52.145	46.287	0	47.064	46.79
Low	45.718	45.179	45.179	44.169	0	42.603	44.448
Close	46.243	45.439	45.439	44.363	0	46.675	45.473
Pip move	182.5	163.7	696.6	211.8	0	446.1	234.2
PP	46.501	45.811	47.588	44.94	0	45.447	45.57
dis­tance	78.3	63.2	240.9	77.1	0	284.4	112.2
R1	47.284	46.443	49.997	45.711	0	48.291	46.692
dis­tance	182.5	163.7	696.6	211.8	0	446.1	234.2
R2	48.326	47.448	54.554	47.058	0	49.908	47.912
dis­tance	-104.2	-100.5	-455.7	-134.7	0	-161.7	-122
S1	45.459	44.806	43.031	43.593	0	43.83	44.35
dis­tance	-182.5	-163.7	-696.6	-211.8	0	-446.1	-234.2
S2	44.676	44.174	40.622	42.822	0	40.986	43.228
TV	80,893	72,030	351,797	42,179	79,278	79,785
50MA	58.273	57.775	57.212	56.705	56.215
200MA	65.859	65.78	65.69	65.613	65.522

• What can we tell from the PP levels?
  • DPP is a lit­tle high­er than the day before
  • We retraced the PP lev­els to about half of the day before so we tight­ened up again and are get­ting for the next big move
• Where are the high­er time frame S/R levels?
  • We have sup­port at 4H 44.40
  • And resis­tance at Dai­ly 46.25 level
• What does the 4H and 30M chart show?
  • We have 30M resis­tance lev­el at 46 
  • DPP 45.570 ass support
  • The next point of sup­port is 30M 45.15 level
• How far away are we from tech­ni­cal levels?

Cur­rent	45.8
Price
	Price	Dis­tance
50MA	56.215	1,042
200MA	65.522	1,972

S/R	kind	lev­el	Dis­tance
R6	WPP	47.588	178.8
R5	30M	47.05	125
R4	DR1	46.692	89.2
R3	30M	46.4	60
R2	Dai­ly	46.25	45
R1	30M	46	20
CURRENT		45.8
S1	DPP	45.57	-23
S2	30M	45.15	-65
S3	30M	44.8	-100
S4	4H	44.4	-140
S5	DS1	44.35	-145
S6	DS2	43.228	-257.2

• What has the Asian Ses­sion printed?
  • We made a LH on the 30M chart and might be look­ing to have some more down­side on the short term horizon
• ATR
  • What is the ATR on the daily?
    • Is it increasing/decreasing?
      • 2.3438
      • Decreas­ing

Trade Plan

• I’ll be look­ing for sup­port and resis­tance areas to be tested
  • And if they are and we are overex­tend­ed in com­bi­na­tion with a rever­sal can­dle pat­tern on the 5M chart I will take a swing rever­sal (S/R hold) trade

My goals for the day (Dai­ly Report Card)

• Only take 4 trades
• Only take PB setups
• Only take con­ser­v­a­tive posi­tion sizing

Read­ing the Tape

• What is print­ing? Look for PA with high­er TV and S/R levels.
  • Before Lon­don open we had some short swing that show up on the 30M as small can­dles with longer low­er wicks that could poten­tial­ly be accu­mu­la­tion again. How­ev­er at Lon­don open we had a move to UKC on the 5M and got pushed back real quick that it has a long upper wick so let’s wait and see what step the mar­ket would like to make
    • Anoth­er thing I noticed is that the VWAP and KC are in con­ver­gence so we might be rang­ing the rest of the ses­sion where I can short the tops and go long at the bot­tom of the range
  • Price seems to be very errat­ic and spread is wider than usu­al 34–44
  • And we might have a BO from the top of the range and 30M 46 level
  • Very errat­ic PA still and I should be extra cau­tious. Only tiny posi­tions are allowed.
    • We are mak­ing long bod­ied can­dles at right under the 30M 46 lev­el and we might be set­ting up for a BO here. 
  • The more and more I look at this I think that we are in the accu­mu­la­tion phase again. The rea­son for this is that we might be look­ing to make a con­tin­u­a­tion  on the up move we had 2 days ago as we have pulled back on the high­er time frames and found sup­port at the 45.10 level
    • But the move might not hap­pen until NY opens
  • Wow, we just dropped to 45.75 lev­el and are being pushed up again. So a lot of activ­i­ty and no dis­cern­able trad­ing pat­tern just yet. 
  • PA has been basi­cal­ly reject­ing the 5M 50MA this whole time so I’m think­ing that I might take a long when we drop back to this lev­el again. How­ev­er, hav­ing said that we seem to also be mak­ing LHs on the top so not entire­ly sure what’s going on there. 
    • The 5M 50MA is also the 30M VWAP mean.
  • I took an exper­i­men­tal tiny posi­tion to test my the­o­ry of the range it was trad­ing at. When it dropped to the bot­tom I went long and when it moved back up but not fast enough I cov­ered quick­ly at 1.5 tick profit
    • Entry 45.903
    • Cov­ered at 45.918
  • We dropped to DPP 45.570 so I took a long position 
  • T2
    • Win 2.4 ticks
  • We didn’t return with a swing back high though and remained at the bot­tom of the range so I’m glad I got out when I did
    • We swung back up to 45.72 lev­el which was a pre­vi­ous S/R lev­el (ie. the bot­tom of the range we were swing­ing in) and per­haps we con­firmed that as resis­tance and might move down
    • As always let’s wait and see what hap­pens here. It might be a BD trap.
  • We formed a long wicked doji at the bot­tom with­in the KC still so does this mean a rever­sal is com­ing up? Could very well be. 
  • It does indeed look like a reversal.
    • We moved back to the 5M VWAP mean and I was think­ing to take a long posi­tion. Also because the 30M shows that we are at the 50MA and the pre­vi­ous can­dle pushed back on the body to right above it so that looks bullish
      • How­ev­er just after I start­ed typ­ing this we dropped a bit on the 5M and con­tra­dict­ing the PA at the VWAP mean so that makes me doubt it again so I’m going to play it safe and stay out of it. Live to fight anoth­er day.
  • After hav­ing said that I took a long posi­tion a bit lat­er and oh boy did it go against me. Luck­i­ly I took a tiny posi­tion and I am still in the trade because of that. I know that I am throw­ing over­board my usu­al plans but since I am exper­i­ment­ing today any­way with these trades of today let me see if I can trade around this posi­tion and make up for loss­es. I have the rest of the day free so I’ll be going well into the NY ses­sion as well I assume. 
  • After I closed off my posi­tions at BREAK EVEN I decid­ed to call it quits.

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?
    • I took an exper­i­men­tal tiny posi­tion to test my the­o­ry of the range it was trad­ing at. When it dropped to the bot­tom I went long and when it moved back up but not fast enough I cov­ered quick­ly at 1.5 tick profit
      • Entry 45.903
  • SL
    • Very wide under the range at 45.658
  • TP
    • 46.065
  • Trade Man­age­ment
    • Cov­ered at 45.918
    • If I had wait­ed a bit longer I could have pock­et­ed some more ticks. Since I am not too famil­iar with this par­tic­u­lar set­up I want to train being more patient when PA is crazy like this. So I will try to work on this in the future.

• T2
  • Why? What do I see?
    • KC VWAP convergence
      • KC and VWAP both widen­ing a lot which usu­al­ly means that we’ll be trad­ing with­in their range
    • We had dropped to DPP 45.57 lev­el and based on these rules I should go against the grain and go long
  • SL
    • 45.647
  • TP
    • 45.826
  • Trade Man­age­ment
    • I am def­i­nite­ly not too com­fort­able with this kind of trade
      • PA jumps very quick­ly and unsure what’s going to happen
      • I cov­ered at 45.671
      • Win 2.4 ticks

• T3
  • Not closed yet
  • Closed final­ly
    • Entry
      • 45.585
      • Cov­ered 45.201
      • Loss 38.4 ticks

• T4
  • Entry
    • 44.978
    • Cov­ered 45.001
    • Win 2.3 ticks
• T5
  • Entry
    • 45.042
    • Cov­ered 45.081
    • Win 3.9 ticks
• T6
  • Entry
    • 45.174
    • Cov­ered 45.241
    • Win 6.7 ticks

Trade Review

• Did you let your trade play out or did you cov­er or stop out soon­er? If so, why?
  • I was focussed on tak­ing good trades.

Dai­ly Report Card

• Only take 4 trades
  • I took 6. There is some­thing to hav­ing a los­ing trade since I am sharp­er and thus more alert to make it up again. How­ev­er, this is a dan­ger­ous game but I’m glad I tried it out today and fin­ished with BREAK EVEN on the mon­ey account. Down in ticks though which I’m not too unhap­py about. 
• Only take PB setups
  • I wait­ed for setups to arise and took them. How­ev­er, I still have an issue with cut­ting loss­es short. And then all of the sud­den I decid­ed to go work around the posi­tion. What was good was that the posi­tion was real­ly tiny and thus didn’t both­er me as much. When an oppor­tu­ni­ty came up that I should nor­mal­ly take because it’s a PB set­up, I took it with slight­ly big­ger size to make back my loss­es. I didn’t go over­board forc­ing to make up for loss­es. I stayed composed. 
• Only take con­ser­v­a­tive posi­tion sizing
  • I did very well in this depart­ment and stuck to my rule.

Feed­back?

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