Daily Report Card 06022020

My week­ly goal

Only take trades when there are at least 4 con­flu­ences. Trade loca­tion. Mar­ket Pro­file. Price action con­fir­ma­tion. Fol­low hard entry and exit rules.

Good Pre-mar­ket routines

Good Ses­sion PECS

Good Trade selection

Okay Trade Exe­cu­tion & Mgmt.

Good Risk Adjust­ed Returns

Yes Dai­ly review

Mup­pet meter (1 being best — 5 being worst): 2

Sum­ma­ry: Trend Continuation

• Lon­don opened below val­ue and IB trad­ed with a M15 bear engulf at VWAP
• Entry Short 1.35313 SL 1.35560 TP 1.34913
  • Rea­sons for tak­ing the trade: M15 bear engulf, IB range (nar­row) exten­sion down, with demand ZOI below. If demand is tak­en out there is not much con­ges­tion in the way to hit TP. I will mon­i­tor D TPO for a close with­in IB to con­firm a buy­ing tail in C and failed auc­tion to take posi­tion off man­u­al­ly if need be. 
• I man­u­al­ly took the trade off at 1.35164 at 0.8R
  • Rea­sons for doing so was because I am in a draw­down and that price had almost reached 1R and I did­n’t want to be a d*** for a tick. I failed to respect the min 1R rule here. Anoth­er mis­take I made was look­ing at low­er time­frames for clues when I should be look­ing at M30 and high­er. When I saw M5 and M15 being ‘extend­ed from VWAP’ I took this as a con­fir­ma­tion that price could reverse at this lev­el. Which obvi­ous­ly is biased because of want­i­ng to take prof­its. I failed to think clear­ly and be objec­tive and mon­i­tor TPOs. If I had done so I could have noticed the sin­gle prints and it would take some ‘work’ to build TPO struc­ture before a pos­si­ble rever­sal and thus I could have stayed with the trade a bit longer. Plus I had men­tioned before that tak­ing out of the demand we could see a sig­nif­i­cant move down. I will work on this through prac­tice in mon­i­tor­ing TPO for clues that price is revers­ing or con­tin­u­ing. Per­haps a time-based rule of a few min­utes before I can close off my trade. Grasshop­per that I am. 
• After we formed a 3 TPO struc­ture at the bot­tom of the exten­sion we now have a buy­ing tail dur­ing F as well and ses­sion range is exhaust­ed. Will still need at least one more TPO and price action to con­firm a poten­tial rever­sal setup.
• Since the 4th TPO would close out­side of my trad­ing win­dow I decid­ed to not take any trades any­more. There is always tomorrow. 

How accu­rate was my assess­ment of mar­ket context?

• I did well here apart from grasshop­per­ing on the profit-taking 

How did I feel before, dur­ing, and after the trade?

• I felt good before the trade. Even after being slight­ly more bull­ish in my bias due to open being fur­ther away from val­ue. But when I saw a M15 bear engulf and con­se­quent IB exten­sion down I decid­ed to go short instead. Trade what is. Not your bias. 
• Dur­ing the trade I felt my inner-grasshop­per com­ing on as point­ed out ear­li­er in my summary. 
  • I define this grasshop­per-ness as a nar­rowed vision only look­ing at price charts and try­ing to jus­ti­fy my deci­sion to take prof­its ear­li­er with­out actu­al­ly being objec­tive. In most cas­es I don’t have to make quick deci­sions once in a trade and there is no need for this fight or flight behavior. 
• After the trade I feel okay. Slight­ly bummed I could have fol­lowed my process bet­ter, but that’s in the rear view mir­ror now. I adjust­ed my process to con­sid­er a clos­ing of posi­tion based on a M15 can­dle close dur­ing times of draw­down and I’m look­ing for that 1R. 

How well did I fol­low my process?

• Could have been slight­ly bet­ter as stat­ed above but I am gain­ing expe­ri­ence in trad­ing ‘in the wild’ and you have to make deci­sions in the heat of the moment. Only expe­ri­ence will teach me to get bet­ter at it. As always, I’ll be back tomorrow.

How well did I man­age my phys­i­cal, emo­tion­al and cog­ni­tive states?

• I did well here. I decid­ed to take on some­thing light to eat ear­li­er and then have a meal lat­er in the ses­sion so that I am not hun­gry but also not ‘dumb­ed’ or slowed down by food.

What did I learn today?

• When in a draw­down and I am aim­ing for 1R prof­it-tak­ing I should focus on a M15 can­dle close before con­sid­er­ing to take the trade off. This will allow me to be less of a grasshop­per and stay objec­tive on TPO struc­ture being formed com­bined with price action. 
• When it is a high ini­tia­tive day I have more time to make a deci­sion and it is less like­ly the mar­ket will reverse all of the sud­den and I lose my prof­it. After a high ini­tia­tive day it is best to look for that 4 TPO struc­ture and price action con­firm­ing a rever­sal before tak­ing the oppo­site direc­tion. Today this did not hap­pen dur­ing my trad­ing win­dow so only 1 trade today.

What’s one thing I need to do more often?

•  Let mar­ket pro­file guide and calm me. If I had done that I would have dou­bled my profit. 

What’s one thing I need to do less often?

• Be a grasshop­per. I have rules in place to bat­tle this and I have been doing pret­ty well. Today was not quite a day I did well on this point and thus added anoth­er rule to bat­tle this in the future. For the most part I did great today and learned some­thing new. 

For my trade plan(s) on this par­tic­u­lar day, go here:

Pre­mar­ket Prep USDCAD 06022020

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