Daily Report Card 06192020

Every trad­ing day I recap my trades, includ­ing more than just entries and exits. Why did I take the trade, how did I man­age the trade as well as my emo­tions and cog­ni­tive func­tion? All the good stuff of being a trad­er as well as all the ugly. No secrets here. As always, feel free to reach out to me. 

My week­ly goal

Fol­low hard entry and exit rules.

Good Pre-mar­ket routines

Good Ses­sion PECS

Good Trade selection

Fair Trade Exe­cu­tion & Mgmt.

Good Risk Adjust­ed Returns

Yes Dai­ly review

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

Sum­ma­ry: Val­ue Rejection

• LN open with­in value
• I am actu­al­ly see­ing some­thing very sim­i­lar to yes­ter­day unfold (poten­tial­ly) and put in a Sell Stop order at 1.93294 if we again start burst­ing down like yes­ter­day and reject val­ue. Although no move as of yet.
• Order got trig­gered. Entry 1.93284 SL 1.93657 TP 1.92564
  • Rea­sons: M15 DBD and pro­file mak­ing LLs togeth­er with high­er time frame show­ing a pos­si­ble con­tin­u­a­tion to the down­side with Demand being tak­en out. A big con is H4 con­ter­mi­nous 1.93270. 
• Will mon­i­tor with OODA and TPOs for a pos­si­ble failed auction. 
• Took 1.8R at 1.92808. Hap­py with how I took the trade and man­aged the trade. How­ev­er, not hap­py with how I sized the trade. In the end this only made me 1.3% on my account. I should have adjust­ed my start­ing account bal­ance into my siz­ing cal­cu­la­tor and also adjust­ed siz­ing accord­ing to my SL. This is some­thing I can eas­i­ly pre­vent next time but still. Since this trade was ago­niz­ing­ly slow due to under­ly­ing demand I feel I could have been prof­it­ing bet­ter. This must just sound like nit­pick­ing but with the effort we put in bet­ter get the right pay­off as well 🙂
• Rea­son for ear­ly exit is low­er time frame show­ing pos­si­ble signs of rever­sal and I got fair­ly close to tar­get. Then wait­ed for the next M15 can­dle to fin­ish and took the trade off. Here also I could do bet­ter but I feel I need a few more of these to train being patient in feel­ing the pres­sure of grasshop­per­ing and tak­ing profits.
• After­math
  • Mar­ket con­sol­i­dat­ed a lit­tle bit and con­tin­ued down

How accu­rate was my assess­ment of mar­ket context?

• I did well to rec­og­nize the price action mak­ing a DBD on the M15 (as it did the day pri­or) and I took advan­tage of it through a sell stop order placed with­in the IB extension.

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

• I felt good before tak­ing the trade even though there was under­ly­ing demand but through price action show­ing me that we could pos­si­bly take that demand out I went in
• Dur­ing the trade it was ago­niz­ing a bit… Price was very slow, due to that under­ly­ing demand (which was also the dif­fer­ence with yes­ter­day where the same sce­nario played out but with­out the medi­um time frame demand under­neath). I did well to focus on TPOs and con­sid­er the LLs in each TPO and stuck with the trade. Half an hour before cut off I decid­ed to wait for a M15 can­dle close to take the posi­tion off. As per my rules. 
• I feel good after the trade about how I took the trade as well as how I man­aged it. Not so hap­py about how I sized up but will tack­le that next time around. 

How well did I fol­low my process?

• Did real­ly well here. Very hap­py to close the week off with:
  • 3 trades tak­en, 3 win­ners, being up a total of 3.58%
    • Left 0.5% on the table today though as men­tioned earlier
  • Even though I missed one good trade I logged it for future ref­er­ence and coin­ci­den­tal­ly got a chance to make up for it today with a sim­i­lar sce­nario play­ing out. Very hap­py about this. 
  • This one is even big­ger to me than being up mon­e­tary-wise: Hav­ing fol­lowed my rules and get­ting bet­ter at tam­ing that grasshop­per inside me. Slow­ly get­ting bet­ter in being con­sis­tent. Get­ting bet­ter at tam­ing that voice in my head that wants to think in terms of ‘THE MOST MONEY I CAN MAKE’. This game is about being con­sis­tent. The mon­ey is just the result of your process.

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

• Did real­ly well here. When the grasshop­per start­ed pok­ing his head up, I remind­ed myself of the M15 can­dle close rule as well as try­ing to focus on medi­um time frame pic­ture rather than blind­ly star­ing at low­er time frames. Also hav­ing some­thing else to focus on for a bit helps so went out for a short bit and reassessed. 

What did I learn today?

• I can do this. I can fol­low rules even when no one is look­ing over my shoul­ders. But the feel­ing of being part of some­thing big­ger than me does add to keep­ing myself in check. I want to do well. Not just for me. And I def­i­nite­ly don’t want to lose face. Even though I know I will make mis­takes in the future, it is good that I can recen­ter myself to what does work. Since I’ve been there. Here in the now. Look­ing at what is rather than what could be. Trad­ing what is in front of me. 

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

• Focus on the process. With­in the frame­work of sta­tis­tics in prob­a­bil­i­ties com­bined with trad­ing approach there is a def­i­nite edge. All I need to do is be ready when the oppor­tu­ni­ty presents itself. Engage. And let it play out. 

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

• Mess up siz­ing! Already addressed above. I made it part of my process plan so will tack­le this next time. It’s all a process. 

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

Pre­mar­ket Prep GBPNZD 06192020

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